OCCRP exposed: U.S.-funded ‘independent journalism’

The French newspaper Mediapart has revealed that the OCCRP is heavily funded by the U.S. government. According to the investigation, the funding of the OCCRP has fueled the debate about its independence and has had an impact on U.S. foreign policy interests.

The French online newspaper Mediapart has published an in-depth investigation into the massive U.S. government funding of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an independent U.S. research network for journalists.

Many media organizations collaborate with the OCCRP.

This is the result of months of joint research by Il Fatto Quotidiano in Italy, Reporters United in Greece and the American media organization Drop Site News, reports Mediapart. It is noteworthy that Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) reportedly contributed to the investigation but later withdrew from publication under pressure from the OCCRP.

According to the report, the OCCRP, which came to prominence in recent years with the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers, is largely funded by the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. federal government provided 52 per cent of the money spent by the OCCRP between 2014 and 2023. A comparison of the OCCRP’s annual audit reports and government budget documents shows that the organization has received at least $47 million since 2008.

Before the article was published, OCCRP founder Drew Sullivan accused the journalists of using ‘malicious and unprofessional’ methods.

Sullivan accused NDR reporter John Goetz of ‘spying for Russia’.

According to the investigation, the NDR decided to cease future cooperation with the OCCRP after learning of the extent of U.S. government funding.

In response to a question from Simon Zeise of the Berliner Zeitung, the organization flatly denied the accusation that it had ‘bowed to pressure’ and said the allegation was ‘unfounded’. NDR journalists had been investigating the OCCRP for a long time.

The broadcaster said that some editors had independently and autonomously decided not to continue the investigation or not to publish it. In the opinion of the legal department and the editorial staff, the investigation was not ready for publication.

The NDR announced that the departments working with the OCCRP had suspended their cooperation and shared the current research with other foreign broadcasters. To the accusation by OCCRP President Sullivan that John Goetz was a ‘Russian spy’, the NDR gave a short and clear ‘no’.

Award-winning American investigative journalist Lowell Bergmann (the character played by Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s 1999 film The Insider) said he resigned from the OCCRP board in 2015 over concerns about funding.

“I became aware of the U.S. government’s intervention. Given the complexity of the issue, I respectfully communicated my concerns and resigned from the board,” Bergmann said.

Although the OCCRP had previously indicated that it was seeking government funding, the support was unprecedented. Journalistic standards may have been violated when the OCCRP promised not to conduct research in the U.S. in exchange for funding from the U.S. State Department.

“Our policy is that a country should not report on that country with its own money. I don’t think the U.S. government would allow that,” said OCCRP President Drew Sullivan.

According to Mediapart, the U.S. government not only shuns OCCRP reporting, but also exerts significant influence by directing funds for reporting that focuses on specific countries. These countries include Russia and Venezuela, which Washington regards as enemies.

In an email sent in 2023, Sullivan acknowledged that the organization did not report on the U.S. in its early years, and that its budget was funded by Washington and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. We couldn’t take money from the U.S. government or Soros and report on the U.S.,’ he admitted to Mediapart.

The OCCRP’s board of directors, however, said that all grants were given without the donors’ right to interfere in editorial policy. However, the OCCRP management refused to provide copies of the contracts in question.

On the other hand, Shannon Maguire of the U.S. Agency for International Development claimed that the Washington administration does not interfere in the OCCRP’s editorial decisions and that they are 100 per cent independent. Sullivan, on the other hand, argued that the U.S. government is “professional and does not try to influence the media, unlike bad actors like Russia”.

The reference to Russia is no accident. The OCCRP has received several grants from the U.S. government for research in countries that Washington considers to be ‘priority problems’.

Between 2015 and 2019, the State Department allocated $2.2 million to the OCCRP for a mission called ‘Stabilizing the Russian Media Space’.

Mediapart also pointed out that the OCCRP led an international media study called Russian Asset Tracker from 2021-2022. The project created the largest database of non-state assets of Russian billionaires and personalities.

According to the report, the U.S. government, through the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium (GACC), used the reports produced by the OCCRP as a kind of “weapon”.

The GACC was established in 2016 following a request for proposals from the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. government is the largest donor. To date, it has transferred a total of $10.8 million to the OCCRP.

The GACC has two main functions: To initiate corruption-related criminal investigations and enforcement actions based on the OCCRP’s findings, and to mobilize civil society and persuade states to strengthen their anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws.

In May 2024, the OCCRP produced a report on Russian sanctions evasion. The report was produced in collaboration with the U.K. think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and funded by the U.K. Foreign Office. One of RUSI’s vice presidents is former CIA Director General David Petraeus.

Mediapart wrote that for a journalistic organization to carry out such activities on the initiative and with the financial support of the United States, even in a ‘just cause’, raises important ethical questions.

OCCRP president Sullivan disagreed: “While some initially found this approach controversial, it has been adopted by other media organizations. We believe the GACC has been very successful.”