Casey Michel is the director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation. He is the author of multiple books on illicit finance, international money laundering, corruption, and authoritarianism, including Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World, and American Kleptocracy: How the US Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History, which The Economist named as one of the top five books to read to understand financial crime. His writing on these topics has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and many more publications.
His forthcoming book - The United States of Oligarchy: How America’s Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy - will be published by St. Martin's Press in 2026. He has been sanctioned by the Russian government for his work, and he previously taught a course on the history of Batman at Rice University.
