The OCCRP’s hidden relationship with Washington casts new doubts on the integrity of distinguished Western media shops
An investigation revealed on Monday by France’s Mediapart and its companions, together with Drop Website Information (US), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and Reporters United (Greece), has uncovered that the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Challenge (OCCRP), the world’s largest investigative journalism community, is secretly managed by the US authorities.
The report reveals that Washington has offered round half of the group’s funding and has important sway over its management and editorial route, elevating questions in regards to 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 acquired at the very least $47 million from American authorities sources. This accounts for roughly half of the group’s total funding, making the US state the biggest donor by far.
The OCCRP’s monetary dependence on the US authorities has led to considerations in regards to 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 would 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 appropriate to veto key personnel appointments inside the group, together with the nomination of its writer, Sullivan. Underneath agreements with the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (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 a press release, 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 stated. The facility 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 non-public 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 considerations 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 advanced internet of monetary help that the OCCRP has acquired over time.
OCCRP based based mostly 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) offered the preliminary $1.7 million to determine the community. This secret funding, funneled by the Journalism Improvement 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 determine the OCCRP. The truth that such an influential journalistic community was born out of a covert US authorities grant raises considerations in regards to the independence of its operations.
US govt funds investigations geared toward opponents resembling Russia Some of the hanging 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 acquired $2.2 million from the US to research Russian media in an effort dubbed ‘Balancing the Russian media sphere’.
Equally, the group was granted $2.3 million to research corruption in Cyprus and Malta, two areas 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, guaranteeing 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 according to US international coverage priorities.
OCCRP studies weaponized to justify US sanctions coverage The OCCRP’s investigative studies 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 better sanctions on people and entities it frames as being related to corruption, typically concentrating on international locations resembling 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 imagine the GACC has confirmed to be extremely profitable,” Sullivan stated. 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 instrument 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 moderately a instrument 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 terms 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 research corruption in lots of elements of the world, its shut monetary relationship with the US authorities raises important questions in regards to the group’s independence and the potential for its work for use as a instrument of American international coverage.
In conclusion, the findings from Mediapart and its companions spotlight the advanced and infrequently hidden relationship between the OCCRP and the US authorities. Regardless of its protestations, the dimensions of its monetary dependence on the US authorities and the affect that Washington has over its operations will hardly be ignored.
