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OCCRP serves the direct interests of the U.S. government and USAID -ANALYSIS

21 December 2024 14:56 (UTC +04:00)

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) continues its biased and unobjective stance against Azerbaijan, as well as primarily against independent and Washington-opposing countries. In fact, there is nothing surprising about this. Since OCCRP is largely funded by the United States in a non-transparent manner, it must, of course, fulfill Washington's orders in accordance with its obligations.

This is not just an arbitrary statement. The fact that OCCRP acts as a "corruption whistleblower" at the behest of the U.S. is confirmed by facts. This can be clearly seen in an article titled " A Giant of Journalism Gets Half its Budget From the U.S. Government," written by Ryan Grim, Ștefan Candea, and Nikolas Leontopoulos, and published on dropsitenews.com. The article exposes OCCRP’s financial sources, its real objectives, and its intentions. The investigation involved media organizations such as Drop Site News, Mediapart, l Fatto Quotidiano, Reporters United, as well as Germany's NDR public broadcaster.

The article, based on research, points out that OCCRP produces and disseminates materials about corruption and crime, mainly about Russia, China, Iran, as well as individual countries that are in opposition to the United States. Another interesting point is that OCCRP’s investigations do not include any material about corruption or other illegal activities within the U.S. itself, its allied countries, or American corporations and companies.

The article notes that OCCRP is also funded by the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Sweden, but the contributions from these countries cannot be compared to that of the U.S. More than half of OCCRP’s budget comes from the U.S. It has been revealed that between 2014 and 2023, the U.S. State Department allocated $47 million to OCCRP through USAID, which accounts for 52% of the organization’s total budget for that period. However, in certain years, the amount of funding was even higher. For instance, in 2016, American funding accounted for 63% of OCCRP’s budget. These facts demonstrate that OCCRP’s operations are entirely based on the orders and interests of the U.S. A noteworthy fact about OCCRP’s financial sources has attracted attention.

After understanding the scale of U.S. government funding, Germany's NDR public broadcaster decided to terminate its cooperation with OCCRP. Additionally, a spokesperson for the New York Times, which has worked on collaborations with OCCRP, said that the news organization did not disclose the nature of its funding to the Times. As a result, their collaboration was halted. There are also individuals who parted ways with OCCRP in protest of its questionable funding as well as the fact that OCCRP's commissioned activities due to funding from the US government. Lowell Bergman, a former member of OCCRP's Board of Directors, made significant statements in this regard. Bergman told journalists that after becoming certain of OCCRP’s connections to the U.S. government, he left the organization in 2014.

"After learning about the role of the U.S. government, I expressed my concern to Drew Sullivan and others, and respectfully stepped off the board.”

Another interesting point is that OCCRP, which accuses various states of corruption and demands transparency from them in financial matters, has suspicious financial sources itself. An article published on dropsitenews.com states that OCCRP, with an annual budget of 20 million euros and 200 employees, is a project of the U.S. government. The first million dollars that made the creation of OCCRP possible came from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs—known as INL, part of the State Department—in 2008. The grant was routed to a legal entity called the Journalism Development Group, an LLC in Delaware, which birthed OCCRP. Though

OCCRP's ties to the U.S. government are so close that even the head of USAID, Samantha Power, calls it a "partner organization." To better understand USAID’s control over OCCRP, it is enough to note that USAID demands annual reports on OCCRP’s projects and staff and has a say in all of these matters. Another fact that confirms OCCRP is not an independent organization is that USAID has the right to appoint OCCRP’s editor-in-chief and editors. The principle of impartiality does not apply to OCCRP, and these basic principles of journalism are not followed. OCCRP, funded by the U.S., has no authority or capacity to conduct investigations related to the U.S. itself. OCCRP's owner Drew Sullivan himself admits this.

"We do not turn this country (the U.S.) into news with its own money. I believe that even the U.S. government wouldn't allow that... However, we don’t do this in other countries where such restrictions do not exist either. Because it puts you into a conflict of interest, and we want to avoid such situations," said Drew Sullivan.

In an email response to media representatives in 2023, Drew Sullivan also admitted that the claims regarding the organization not preparing materials about the U.S. are largely true. The reason for this is that their entire budget is funded by Washington and George Soros' Open Society Foundations. Sullivan wrote, "We wouldn’t use the U.S. government’s or Soros' money in news related to the U.S."

On the other hand, OCCRP must also comply with the "U.S. Foreign Assistance Act" requirement of "alignment with U.S. foreign policy and economic interests and the advancement of these interests" related to U.S. foreign aid. A Latin American editor who previously collaborated with OCCRP stated in an interview with dropsitenews.com that the organization's focus has been on "external corruption": "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. 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.” Based on Sullivan's statements and other mentioned facts, it is clear that OCCRP does not conduct investigations into corruption related to the U.S. or other countries from which it receives funding. Its primary targets, driven by U.S. orders, are countries and corporations that Washington “does not like” and that it “wants to hit.” This can be confirmed through a brief analysis of OCCRP's activities.

Let's consider a fact as an example. Between 2015 and 2019, the State Department gave $2.2 million to OCCRP for the purpose of “Balancing the Russian Media Sphere.” The most interesting aspect of this matter is that the U.S. first investigated the issue through OCCRP and then involved the FBI in the process. In general, it is no longer in doubt that OCCRP works with or for U.S. intelligence agencies. The mechanism of this cooperation is quite simple. U.S. intelligence agencies identify any fact related to the state's interests, then the government, through organizations like OCCRP and others, disseminates this information, afterward, U.S. intelligence and state agencies formally get involved in the process. In the next phase, official statements, accusations, sanctions, military interventions, and other steps follow. This is how the process works.

In this context, OCCRP’s claim that it conducts investigations based on principles of transparency and impartiality is obviously baseless and ridiculous. Under the guise of fighting corruption and organized crime, OCCRP actually serves as a tool for external pressure in the hands of official Washington. The organization operates according to the directions dictated by its donors, primarily the geopolitical interests of the U.S.

The fact that OCCRP does not address corruption within the U.S., given that it is funded by the U.S. government, reveals how "independent" and "principled" the organization truly is. To be more specific, OCCRP’s activities are essentially about carrying out the U.S. government’s orders. Therefore, presenting OCCRP as an independent journalistic platform naturally arouses ridicule. Investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists further confirm that this organization should be regarded as part of a global pressure strategy against states and corporations that are unfavorable to the West, particularly the U.S. The years-long, baseless, false, and defamatory "investigations" against Azerbaijan should also be viewed within this context. The main reason for such an attitude toward Azerbaijan is Baku's independent foreign policy, which is not aligned with U.S. interests. However, the USAID factor should not be overlooked in this matter. The pro-Armenian position of USAID, especially its head Samantha Power, plays an important role in the biased attitude towards Azerbaijan. It should not be forgotten that OCCRP is actually a part of USAID, from which it receives the bulk of its funding, and directly serves US interests.