An incredibly thorough and detailed report released by Public reveals that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was directly involved in the Russian hoax and 2019 attempts to impeach then-President Donald Trump. The connection was done through subsidizing the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Townhall reports that OCCRP “pushed the Trump-Russian bank/money laundering myth.” The group “is supposed to be independent but was anything but” as USAID “approved its staff hires and action plan.” Additionally, OCCRP was “cited numerous times in a CIA whistleblower’s complaint that launched the Ukraine quid pro quo circus” adds Townhall.
According to Public, “OCCRP describes itself as a cost-effective arm of the US government’s anti-corruption efforts, writing that ‘our stories have helped return more than $11 billion to public coffers through seizures and fines’ and that ‘OCCRP has brought in at least ten times more money to the U.S. government than it has received in grants.”
As a self-proclaimed “arm of the US government” it is clear that it weaponized its status against Trump. Public reports:
The investigation by Public shows that OCCRP played a significant role in developing the narrative that Trump and his associates had ties to Russian banking and Russian money laundering, as well as other undisclosed conflicts of interest with Russia.
Senior managers at USAID and the co-founder of OCCRP confirmed that USAID must sign off on the hiring of key OCCRP personnel and its annual work plan. OCCRP created a central piece of evidence in a CIA analyst’s whistleblower complaint that resulted in the House of Representatives voting to impeach President Donald Trump in December 2019.
OCCRP admits all of this in its response: “Here are the facts: One of our stories was cited in a 2019 whistleblower complaint filed against President Donald Trump. The complaint then sparked his first impeachment.”
Public revealed OCCRP attempted to defend itself against the findings of the report by using the Hunter Biden story:
In an email to Public, OCCRP’s Editor in Chief noted that OCCRP published an article about how Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer, “had received millions from a reputed organized crime associate” as evidence that OCCRP has no political bias.
A poor move on the part of OCCRP because, as it turns out, Public was able to combat that piece of disinformation as well in its reporting:
As for OCCRP’s article about Hunter Biden’s business partner, it repeatedly stressed that Hunter Biden was not involved. “While the younger Biden had previously been involved with RSTP [Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners],” OCCRP wrote, “there is no evidence that he played a role in the mbloom [startup fund] deal.” OCCRP went on to say that it had confirmed Biden’s lack of involvement after reviewing “financial records.” It did not specify how it obtained those records.
