The U.S. Agency for International Development has partnered with the Open Society Foundations, the funding network established by Hungarian American billionaire George Soros, to bankroll a news organization that attacks conservatives and seems to have inspired the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.
USAID has received renewed scrutiny in recent weeks after Trump paused U.S. funding for foreign countries and appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio acting administrator at USAID. SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, has helped the administration highlight USAID’s funding for woke projects. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has highlighted $1.5 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia.
Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger has highlighted USAID’s funding for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a news outlet that also receives funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and that has attacked conservatives.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project does not hide its Open Society Foundations funding. Its 2023 annual report lists both Open Society Foundations and USAID as contributors.
Attacks on Conservatives
In 2017, the news organization attacked Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project published a story claiming that “Macedonia’s scandal-plagued nationalists” had “lobbied America’s right and pulled them into an anti-Soros crusade.”
Smith, Lee, and Gonzalez had made the mistake of noticing that the U.S. Embassy to Macedonia had selected Soros’ Open Society Foundations as the main implementer for USAID projects in the Eastern European country. In February 2017, USAID awarded a $2.54 million contract to the foundation for training in “civic activism,” “mobilization,” and “civic engagement.”
Speaking to The Daily Signal in a phone interview Thursday, Gonzalez called the attack “completely egregious.”
“Why am I paying through my tax dollars for a foreign operation to attack me?” he asked. “Why is a foreign operation attacking domestic political actors on behalf of the U.S. government?”
He said it attacked him “because we disagree with the Left.”
“They have set up this thing that targets us and we pay for it,” he added.
The First Trump Impeachment
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project also played a pivotal role in the first Trump impeachment.
As Shellenberger pointed out, the House of Representatives impeached Trump after a White House whistleblower claimed that Trump had abused his powers by threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine in order to dig up dirt on a potential rival, then former Vice President Joe Biden. The whistleblower, a CIA analyst, claimed to have heard from White House staff that Trump had directed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to work with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.
The CIA analyst relied on reporting an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project report titled “Meet the Florida Duo Helping Giuliani Investigate for Trump in Ukraine.” Shellenberger cited a report from Drop Site News that the whistleblower’s complaint cited the report four times.
Shellenberger also cited a 2024 documentary from the German television broadcaster NDR. In that documentary, a USAID official confirmed that USAID approves the crime and reporting project’s “annual work plan” and approves new hires of “key personnel.”
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project vehemently denied the claim that USAID has control over the outlet.
“The claim by Dropsite News and partner media that USAID has control over editorial appointments has been disproven and we suggest you read our response to that,” Miranda Patrucic, the editor-in-chief of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, told Shellenberger.
Yet Shellenberger said the OCCRP did not provide evidence disproving the claim.
Our government has become pure evil.