The OCCRP’s hidden relationship with Washington casts new doubts on the integrity of distinguished Western media retailers
An investigation revealed on Monday by France’s Mediapart and its companions, together with Drop Web site Information (US), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and Reporters United (Greece), has uncovered that the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture (OCCRP), the world’s largest investigative journalism community, is secretly managed by the US authorities.
The report reveals that Washington has supplied round half of the group’s funding and has important sway over its management and editorial course, elevating questions concerning the independence of the community’s reporting.
US govt funds greater than half of OCCRP price range
Since its founding in 2008, the OCCRP has obtained a minimum of $47 million from American authorities sources. This accounts for roughly half of the group’s total funding, making the US state the most important donor by far.
The OCCRP’s monetary dependence on the US authorities has led to issues concerning the potential affect of Washington on the group’s editorial stance, notably given the US authorities’s strategic pursuits.
In response to Drew Sullivan, the OCCRP’s co-founder and writer, the US authorities stays the group’s largest donor, offering essential monetary help for its operations. In an interview with German state broadcaster NDR, Sullivan acknowledged, “I’m very grateful to the US authorities” for its help.
Whereas OCCRP officers insist that authorities grants include “impenetrable guardrails” to guard journalistic integrity, critics will argue that such substantial funding creates a structural dependence that might have an effect on editorial independence.
Washington has veto energy over OCCRP management Along with offering substantial funding, the US authorities additionally wields important affect over the OCCRP’s management. Washington has the correct to veto key personnel appointments inside the group, together with the nomination of its writer, Sullivan. Below agreements with the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) and different authorities our bodies, the OCCRP should submit resumes of potential hires for senior roles to the American authorities for approval.
USAID’s Shannon Maguire confirmed this in an announcement, saying the company has the “proper to have its say” on personnel choices. Sullivan himself admitted in an interview that the US can use this veto energy, though he maintained that it has by no means been exercised. “In the event that they veto any person, we are able to say we don’t take the cash,” he mentioned. The ability to dictate appointments, nonetheless, underscores the US authorities’s affect over the OCCRP’s management.
Soros supplies important funding Along with the US authorities, the OCCRP has additionally relied on funding from personal donors, together with the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the stress group based by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. Whereas OSF’s contributions are important, they haven’t raised the identical issues about affect because the US authorities’s donations, so far as the authors of the investigation are involved.
Nonetheless, OSF’s function provides to the complicated internet of monetary help that the OCCRP has obtained over time.
OCCRP based primarily based on secret US govt grant The OCCRP’s origins are tied on to US authorities funding. In 2007, the US State Division’s Bureau of Worldwide Narcotics and Legislation Enforcement Affairs (INL) supplied the preliminary $1.7 million to ascertain the community. This secret funding, funneled by means of the Journalism Growth Group (JDG) managed by Sullivan, was key to the creation of the OCCRP.
Sullivan’s relationship with USAID and the US authorities dates again to the early 2000s, when he labored on a USAID-funded initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina to coach native journalists. He later used his connections to safe funding from the US authorities to ascertain the OCCRP. The truth that such an influential journalistic community was born out of a covert US authorities grant raises issues concerning the independence of its operations.
US govt funds investigations aimed toward opponents equivalent to Russia One of the placing revelations of the investigation is that the US authorities has directed the OCCRP to focus its investigations on particular international locations, together with Russia and Venezuela. The OCCRP obtained $2.2 million from the US to analyze Russian media in an effort dubbed ‘Balancing the Russian media sphere’.
Equally, the group was granted $2.3 million to analyze corruption in Cyprus and Malta, two places the place Russian enterprise individuals have important monetary pursuits.
By funding investigations that concentrate on sure international locations, the US authorities has influenced the scope of the OCCRP’s reporting, making certain that its investigations align with American geopolitical pursuits. The OCCRP has labored on a number of high-profile worldwide investigations, together with ‘Cyprus Confidential’, which uncovered Russian residents allegedly utilizing the island as a tax haven to bypass sanctions. These investigations are clearly consistent with US international coverage priorities.
OCCRP experiences weaponized to justify US sanctions coverage The OCCRP’s investigative experiences have additionally been utilized by the US authorities to justify its international coverage, notably sanctions. By means of the International Anti-Corruption Consortium (GACC), a program co-financed by the US State Division, OCCRP investigations have been instantly linked to judicial actions and sanctions procedures.
The US authorities makes use of the OCCRP’s findings to push for higher sanctions on people and entities it frames as being related to corruption, typically concentrating on international locations equivalent to Russia and Venezuela.
Sullivan confirmed that the OCCRP works intently with governments, together with the US, to use the findings of its investigations in ways in which help broader worldwide coverage targets. “We consider the GACC has confirmed to be extremely profitable,” Sullivan mentioned. This program has been instrumental in lobbying for harder anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws, he provides, typically in international locations that the US authorities sees as adversaries.
Propaganda device designed to advise US international coverage pursuits The revelations of the OCCRP’s shut ties to the US authorities will gas criticism that the group will not be merely an impartial journalistic entity, however relatively a device utilized by the US to advertise its international coverage pursuits. Whereas the OCCRP maintains that it operates independently, its reliance on US funding and its function in advancing US political targets means that its reporting could also be topic to exterior affect, notably in the case of points that have an effect on US geopolitical priorities.
As one director of a South American media outlet put it, “The OCCRP makes the US appear virtuous and permits them to set the agenda of what’s outlined as corruption.” Whereas the OCCRP continues to analyze corruption in lots of components of the world, its shut monetary relationship with the US authorities raises important questions concerning the group’s independence and the potential for its work for use as a device of American international coverage.
In conclusion, the findings from Mediapart and its companions spotlight the complicated and infrequently hidden relationship between the OCCRP and the US authorities. Regardless of its protestations, the size of its monetary dependence on the US authorities and the affect that Washington has over its operations will hardly be ignored.
