By Robert McGreevy, Daily Caller News Foundation | December 02, 2024
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a foreign news organization instrumental in the first impeachment of President-elect Donald Trump, is primarily funded by the U.S. State Department, according to an investigation by Drop Site News.
OCCRP’s reporting on Rudy Giuliani’s business activities in Ukraine was cited four times in the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment. The organization also collaborates with over 50 major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, Drop Site News reported
U.S. taxpayers have funded 52% of OCCRP’s expenditures between 2013 and 2024, and at least $47 million since its founding in 2008, according to the outlet. The organization’s largest single financial backer is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a State Department subsidiary.
OCCRP’s board defended its funding in a statement to Drop Site News, emphasizing previous transparency about its financial backers.
“We understand that reasonable people may believe that’s a bad idea, especially since it is not the norm in journalism in the United States (although government support of journalism is not uncommon in Europe and elsewhere). This was thoroughly discussed years ago when OCCRP was founded,” the board wrote.
“The Board at that time — which included several of us who remain on the Board and whose personal reputations as journalists and executives are impeccable — decided that it was worth the tradeoff for the investigative journalism OCCRP could produce with this financial support.”
While some reporters who OCCRP collaborated with were aware of the funding and unconcerned, others expressed discomfort with an investigative newsroom being primarily funded by a major world government.
Lowell Bergman, a legendary investigative reporter portrayed by Al Pacino in “The Insider,” resigned from OCCRP’s board in 2014 over the USAID funding.
“It was also then that I became aware of the U.S. government involvement. Because that was clearly a complicated issue, I expressed my concern to [OCCRP CEO] Drew Sullivan and others, and respectfully stepped off the board,” Bergman told NDR, a German outlet.
NDR, which previously collaborated with OCCRP, also paused its partnership after learning of the organization’s funding, Drop Site reported.
NDR also allegedly censored their own reporting on the story, Media Part, a French news outlet which collaborated with Dropsite and NDR on the OCCRP report, alleged.
The New York Times also told Drop Site that OCCRP did not disclose the nature of its funding to the outlet.
The Daily Caller reached out to OCCRP and The New York Times for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
While OCCRP says it was initially funded in 2007 by a United Nations Democracy Fund grant, Drop Site found that the grant went to another organization. Instead, OCCRP’s launch was funded by a $1 million gift from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, another State Department subsidiary.
OCCRP cofounder Drew Sullivan maintains there is an editorial firewall between the outlet and USAID, but Drop Site reported that the funding comes with conditions, including the federal government retaining veto power over senior editorial staff.
An unnamed Latin American journalist who apparently collaborated with OCCRP expressed doubts about the American government’s lack of influence.
“If you’re getting paid by the USG to do anti-corruption work, you know that the money is going to get shut off if you bite the hand that feeds you,” the unnamed reporter told Drop Site. “Even if you don’t want to take USG money directly, you look around and almost every major philanthropic funder has partnered with them on some initiative and it gives the impression that you can only go so far and still get funded to do journalism. The truth is we don’t know how deep the influence goes in some newsrooms.”
In addition to USAID and the State Department, OCCRP lists the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Soros-backed Open Society Foundation as supporters.
Robert McGreevy is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Original article link
