In January and February 2024, Bruce Searby acting as an agent of a foreign principal registered with the Department of Justice for Bruno Manser Fonds (BMF), a Swiss NGO, lobbied several Senate and House members on Capitol Hill to examine more closely the FBI's lease of an office tower in Seattle tied to Malaysian ownership. BMF has contended for years that the building likely belonged to the powerful politician Abdul Taib Mahmud, under whose leadership there occurred epic deforestation.