Government Corruption News Articles

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Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by WIRED reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America's agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade, while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI. The documents ... detail a secretive and long-running collaboration between the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD)–whose scope today includes Palestinian rights activists and the recent wave of arson targeting Teslas–and the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a nonprofit trade group representing the interests of US farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and others across America's food supply chain. The AAA has been supplying federal agents with intelligence on the activities of animal rights groups ... with records of emails and meetings reflecting the industry's broader mission to convince authorities that activists are the preeminent "bioterrorism" threat to the United States. Spies working for the AAA during its collaboration with the FBI went undercover at activism meetings, obtaining photographs, audio recordings, and other strategic material. The records further show that state authorities have cited protests as a reason to conceal information about disease outbreaks at factory farms from the public.

Note: Read more about how animal rights activists are being targeted as terrorists. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in factory farming and in the intelligence community.

In the spring of 2025, central Illinois was swallowed by a wall of dust so dense it erased the horizon. This was not a natural disaster. It was the consequence of decades of extractive farming practices. The National Weather Service confirmed that the dust came from exposed agricultural fields–land left vulnerable by chemical-dependent, high-till farming practices that destroy soil structure, eliminate ground cover, and kill the living organisms that bind soil together. Similar dust-related incidents have been reported across the Midwest. Scientists and soil experts warn that without major shifts in land management, these events will become more frequent, more deadly, and more widespread. This is not simply about the weather. This is about how we farm. It is about how much living topsoil we lose every year, estimated globally at over 24 billion tons. Nearly a century ago, our nation faced a similar reckoning. During the 1930s, the Dust Bowl decimated the Great Plains. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ... created the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), now the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and established a network of local soil and water conservation districts across every county in America. He planted trees .... across the Midwest, recognizing that roots hold soil. The current Administration's response is the exact opposite. The Trump government has fired at least 1,700 NRCS employees whose very jobs have been to protect the soil.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in the food system.

When Jeffrey Epstein purchased Little Saint James, the teardrop-shaped island southeast of St. Thomas, in the late 1990s ... he told U.S. Virgin Islands officials that he was seeking privacy. He also appears to have purchased impunity. Investigators accuse him of raping and sexually abusing girls as young as eleven at his island compound where he also hosted many A-list politicians, business leaders and celebrities. One 15-year-old, whom Epstein allegedly forced into sex acts, attempted to escape by swimming away from the island. She was caught and her passport was taken away. While Epstein was alive, Virgin Islands officials appear to have shielded him from scrutiny. After his death in 2019, other officials who aided Epstein began profiting from continued secrecy and a string of legal settlements ... that put hundreds of millions of dollars under the government's control. No one appears to have benefited more than Albert Bryan Jr., the governor of the territory. Bryan has tapped the Epstein settlement funds to pay for a variety of his domestic political agenda items. The proceeds were promised to assist victims of sexual assault, human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and child sexual abuse. In late April, Bryan ... announced the allocation of $22 million in retroactive wages to government workers. Bryan [also] applied the Epstein funds for vendor payments and sought to use the money for a variety of other earmarks, such as a $25 million makeover for the Justice Building on St. Croix.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

Americans are becoming progressively sicker with chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, immune disorders, and declining fertility. Six in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and four in 10 have two or more. The increase in incidence of chronic diseases to epidemic levels has occurred over the last 50 years in parallel with the dramatic increase in the production and use of human-made chemicals, most made from petroleum. These chemicals are used in household products, food, and food packaging. There is either no pre-market testing or limited, inappropriate testing for safety of chemicals such as artificial flavorings, dyes, emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives, and other additives. Exposure is ubiquitous because chemicals that make their way into our food are frequently not identified, and thus cannot realistically be avoided. The result is that unavoidable toxic chemicals are contributing to chronic diseases. Critically, the FDA today does not require corporations to even inform them of many of the chemicals being added to our food, and corporations have been allowed to staff regulatory panels that determine whether the human-made chemicals they add to food and food packaging are safe. The FDA blatantly disregarded this abuse of federal conflict-of-interest standards, which resulted in thousands of untested chemicals being designated as "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS).

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals and food system corruption.

A former housing official who worked under President George H. W. Bush has made an astonishing claim that the U.S. government spent years funneling money into the creation of a secret underground "city" where the rich and powerful can shelter in the event of a "near-extinction event." Catherine Austin Fitts ... served as the assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing between 1989 and 1990. Fitts ... cited research by Michigan State University economist Mark Skidmore, who released a report in 2017 stating that he and a team of scholars had uncovered $21 trillion in "unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015." According to Fitts, who worked as an investment banker before joining Bush's administration, that money was used to fund the development of what she described as an "underground base, city infrastructure and transportation system" that has been kept hidden from the public. She [said] that she spent two years researching where the $21 trillion had gone, alleging that she uncovered evidence that there are 170 secret facilities in the U.S. alone, explaining that she and a team of investigators combed through "all the data and all the allegations on underground bases" in order to make a "guess" as to how many might exist. Additionally, Fitts alleged that several of these bases are located beneath oceans–not just underground.

Note: Read more about the groundbreaking work of Mark Skidmore and Catherine Austin Fitts. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and government waste.

On March 21, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that U.S. shell companies and their owners can once again conceal their identities – a move critics warn could weaken national security and spur illicit financial activity that puts the American public at risk. Treasury's initial beneficial ownership information (BOI) disclosure requirement for all companies with less than 20 employees garnered bipartisan support and Trump's approval during his first administration, but it was short-lived. Officially brought into force last January 2024, and then stymied by lawsuits, the requirement passed its final legal roadblock in February 2025 – only to be shelved a month later by the administration. Now, when a U.S. citizen sets up a shell company in the U.S., they do not have to disclose their identity or the identities of the company's "beneficial owners," or the individuals who profit from the company or control its activities. American beneficial owners of foreign shell companies that register in the U.S. have been granted the same anonymity. Under the latest limited regulation, only non-American owners will be required to register with the U.S. government. U.S. shell companies have been successfully used as cover for illegal arms sales for decades. Hints of a business's true breadth and depth only emerge when a trafficker is apprehended, such as the case of Pierre Falcone who used secret accounts in Arizona to hide his proceeds from arms trafficking to Angola.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in the corporate world.

A declassified Cold War-era file from the CIA has gone viral over its coverage of a supposed clash between Soviet soldiers and a UFO. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CIA acquired a 250-page KGB report recounting the events that transpired after a platoon fired at a flying saucer over Ukraine. The report included eyewitness accounts and pictures of the aftermath. The report claims Soviets conducting a training exercise in Ukraine spotted a "low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer" soaring above their heads. During the encounter, one of the Soviets fired a surface-to-air missile, which struck the UFO and sent it crashing to the ground. "It fell to Earth not far away, and five short humanoids with ‘large heads and large black eyes' emerged from it," the report claims. After escaping the debris of their ruined ship, the beings huddled together and "merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape," the surviving soldiers recalled. "In a few seconds, the spheres grew much bigger and exploded by flaring up with an extremely bright light. At that very instant, 23 soldiers who had watched the phenomenon turned into ... stone poles," the report states. "Only two soldiers who stood in the shade and were less exposed to the luminous explosion survived," it added. The KGB allegedly took custody of the "petrified soldiers" and the ruined spacecraft, which were transported to a secret base near Moscow.

Note: Explore our YouTube playlist of original UFO/UAP videos. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

Starting this week, I once again have the privilege of teaching law students about the First Amendment. I am in the United States on a green card, and recent events suggest that I should be careful in what I say–perhaps even about free speech. The Trump administration is working to deport immigrants, including green-card holders, for what appears to be nothing more than the expression of political views with which the government disagrees. These actions ... make it difficult to work out how to teach cases that boldly proclaim this country is committed to a vision of free speech that, right now, feels very far away. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been–is there any other way to describe it?–rounding up dissidents. To more easily chase down people with ideas it dislikes, the government is asking universities for the names and nationalities of people who took part in largely peaceful protests and engaged in protected speech. Exactly what kind of expression gets you in trouble is not clear–no doubt that's partly the point. [Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Troy] Edgar repeatedly refused to answer [NPR journalist Michel] Martin's simple question: "Is any criticism of the United States government a deportable offense?" A 2010 Supreme Court decision upheld a law banning certain forms of speech that are classified as "material support" to foreign terrorist groups–in that case, the speech included training designated groups on how to pursue their aims peacefully. But even in that case, which upheld a stunningly broad speech restriction, the Court also insisted that ... advocacy of unlawful action is protected so long as it is not done in coordination with terrorist groups. This ... rests "at the heart of the First Amendment": "viewpoint discrimination is uniquely harmful to a free and democratic society."

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and immigration enforcement corruption.

Last Tuesday, former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila and taken to the Hague, where he will be tried for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. From 2016-2022, Duterte's government carried out a campaign of mass killings of suspected drug users. It's estimated that 27,000 people, most of them poor and indigent, were executed without trial by police officers and vigilantes at his behest. Children were also routinely killed during Duterte's drug raids- both as collateral victims and as targets. While this happened, the United States provided tens of millions of dollars annually to both the Philippine military and the Philippine National Police. Many of the killings examined by [Human Rights Watch] followed a pattern: a group of plainclothes gunmen would enter the home of a suspected drug user, kill them without ever issuing an arrest, and plant drugs or weapons next to the body. Sometimes the gunmen would self-identify as police officers, and other times they would not. Police would also detain suspected drug users without charges and torture them for bribes. Less than a month after Duterte took office, then- Secretary of State John Kerry announced a $32 million weapons and training package specifically to support the Philippine National Police. Obama's administration authorized $90 million in military aid to the Philippines in 2016 and roughly $1 billion during the 8 years he was in office.

Note: Read our Substack on the dark truth of the war on drugs. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on the war on drugs.

The Trump administration's unveiling Tuesday of more than 2,000 documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy set off a scramble for any scraps of revelatory information. The newly unredacted files reveal details about CIA agents and operations that the agency kept secret for decades. [A] 1964 document delves into the CIA's operations out of Mexico City at the time, revealing that the agency had no agents actively operating from Cuba. But the agency had "a number of sources with access to Cuba in third party nationals who are debriefed each time they return to Mexico City from Cuba," according to the ... file. Questions surrounding the CIA's activity in Mexico City arose after a previous document release revealed that Oswald had visited the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy there weeks before the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination. [Another] one-page document divulges that Manuel Machado Llosas – treasurer of the Mexican revolutionary movement and a friend of Cuban president and dictator Fidel Castro – was a CIA agent. Machado Llosas was slated to be stationed in Mexico City, where the document says the CIA planned to "use him to report on the activities of Cuban revolutionaries" and leverage his friendship with Castro and other Cuban leaders so he could act as a "‘political action' asset." [A] newly unredacted memo reveals that the CIA surveilled Washington Post reporter Michael Getler.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the JFK assassination.

The countless victims of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody war on drugs are celebrating his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity as a momentous first step toward justice. Many of those who financed, enforced, and even continued in his state-sponsored killing campaign have not been held accountable. That list includes U.S. presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Philippines remains one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in the Indo-Pacific region. In 2018 and 2024, two international people's tribunals in Brussels brought together families of victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under both the Duterte and Marcos administrations. Both tribunals ... found the Trump and Biden administrations complicit in heavily funding state-sponsored killings in the Philippines. The killings targeted not only drug users, but also dissidents and activists as well. Duterte established, and Marcos beefed up and continued, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, or NTF-ELCAC, which immediately weaponized the Philippines civilian bureaucracy to go after government critics and activists on the grounds that they were fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines. With no due process, activists under Duterte and Marcos continued to be systematically killed, illegally arrested, and targeted by state forces, even going as far as to be subjected to abduction, torture, and forced to sign affidavits claiming to be captured guerrillas.

Note: Read our Substack on the dark truth of the war on drugs. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on the war on drugs.

Of the 17 years that I've been incarcerated for killing an abusive boyfriend, I spent eight – from 2016 to last May – in what the state calls "restrictive housing," but I call "solitary confinement" or "the hole." In women's prisons, sexual intrusion, harassment, coercion and violence are daily realities. And in solitary confinement, this conduct is so routine that many women – particularly the younger ones – don't even think of it as abuse. They believe it's simply an inevitable part of their incarceration. In 2023, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TCDJ) reported over 700 allegations of staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment to the PREA Ombudsman, an independent office that tallies up and investigates complaints. Almost 90 of those cases involved sexual harassment, nearly 150 were categorized as voyeurism, and a little more than 500 were classified as sexual abuse. Of the 505 abuse claims, only 20% met the prison system's onerous criteria for sexual assault or "improper sexual activity with a person in custody." On the outside, fewer than half of sexual violence cases are reported to police. Given the power dynamics of prison, underreporting is likely more severe here. Guards use a variety of methods to retaliate against women who complain about their abuse. They can write bogus disciplinary infractions that can lead to ... a longer sentence. Officers can also turn off the electricity and running water in women's cells and refuse to serve them meals.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and sexual abuse scandals.

Feeding incarcerated people has become big business. The food behemoth Aramark (which also services colleges, hospitals, and sports stadiums), as well as smaller corporations like Summit Correctional Services and Trinity Services Group, have inked contracts in the last decade worth hundreds of millions of dollars in prisons and jails across the country. The industry was worth almost $3.2 billion in 2022. Cell phone images smuggled out of jails and prisons across the country reveal food that hardly looks edible, let alone nutritious. At a jail in Cleveland, staff warned administrators in 2023 that the meals served by Trinity were so disgusting, that they put staff in danger. A 2020 study by the criminal justice reform advocacy group Impact Justice found that 94% of incarcerated people surveyed said they did not receive enough food to feel full. More than 60% said they rarely or never had access to fresh vegetables. Meager portions have left desperate people eating toothpaste and toilet paper. Most states spend less than $3 per person per day on prison food – and some as little as $1.02. The Food and Drug Administration's "thrifty plan" estimates that feeding an adult man "a nutritious, practical, cost-effective diet" costs about $10 per day. The major private food providers also have a stake in the booming prison commissary business, where incarcerated people can buy staples like ramen, tuna and coffee. Poor food served in the chow hall drives hungry prisoners to the commissary.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in prisons and in the food system.

US taxpayers spent an estimated $6 billion researching, developing, and implementing new blockbuster weight-loss drugs. Yet Americans are now paying pharmaceutical giants – including one in Denmark – up to eleven times more for these medicines than patients in other countries, markups that are inflating consumers' insurance premiums and risk bankrupting the country's health care system. According to data shared with the Lever by researchers at Bentley University, the federal government spent $6.2 billion from 1980 to 2024 on the discovery and development of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) molecules, as well as research on how to use GLP-1 drugs to treat diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. GLP-1, a hormone that regulates blood sugar, was the foundation of the diabetes drug Ozempic, whose 2017 approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a wave of other GLP-1-based diabetes and weight-loss medications coming to market. More than fifteen million people nationwide currently take GLP-1-related drugs like Ozempic, bringing in more than $50 billion in sales for pharmaceutical companies in 2024 – much of which went to the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. A Senate report ... found that if half of all Medicare and Medicaid patients with obesity took Wegovy and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, it could cost the federal health care system $166 billion per year.

Note: The makers of these weight-loss drugs could be hit with over 10,000 lawsuits over severe adverse events from these drugs. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in Big Pharma.

The Trump administration's decision to pause USAID funding has plunged hundreds of so-called "independent media" outlets into crisis, thereby exposing a worldwide network of thousands of journalists, all working to promote U.S. interests in their home countries. USAID spends over a quarter of a billion dollars yearly training and funding a vast, sprawling network of more than 6,200 reporters at nearly 1,000 news outlets. Oksana Romanyuk, the Director of Ukraine's Institute for Mass Information, revealed that almost 90% of the country's media are bankrolled by USAID, including many that have no other source of funding. [Independent media is] defined as any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not owned or funded by the state. Some USAID-backed journalists candidly admit that their funding dictates ... what stories they do and do not cover. Leila Bicakcic, CEO of Center for Investigative Reporting (a USAID-supported Bosnian organization), admitted, on camera, that "If you are funded by the U.S. government, there are certain topics that you would simply not go after, because the U.S. government has its interests that are above all others." While the press may be lamenting the demise of USAID-backed media, many heads of state are not. "Take your money with you," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro, "it's poison." Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, shared a rare moment of agreement with Petro. "Most governments don't want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up," he wrote, explaining that: "At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda."

Note: The New York Times reported in 2014 that USAID was used as a front for CIA regime change operations all over the world, and played a central role in overseeing the trillion-dollar failure of the war and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. USAID has a long history of child sex abuse cover-ups, fraud allegations, indictments, and inadvertently funding terrorists.

There is an undeniable link between fiscal integrity and the preservation of our freedoms as Americans. When government becomes corrupt, it erodes not only our personal liberties and financial security, but also fosters a culture of lawlessness in both the public and private sectors. The corruption has been institutionalized in the federal budget. It has been normalized as standard operating procedure. The waste of taxpayers' money is ubiquitous – trillions for wars, trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse. Trillions have been lost in an accounting jumble. This has been our government's system of checks and balances: The Administration writes the checks, and Congress doesn't know what the balance is. Most members do not know what is in the $7.3 Trillion spending bill, and those who do aren't talking. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported more than $100 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments in 2023. A Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated the cost of waste, fraud, and abuse to be upwards of $60 BILLION, deriving from a lack of oversight, no internal controls in keeping track of who received the money, who spent it, and what it was spent for–and if indeed its purpose was accomplished. This hypocrisy–condemning endless wars while funding and escalating wars–allowed the military-industrial complex to thrive.

Note:This was written by Dennis Kucinich, former Democratic congressman and nationally recognized leader in peace and social justice. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and government waste.

Logan Sowell's suicide in July 2021 is one of at least seven in the past five years involving the Marine Corps' stable of drill instructors, according to military casualty reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. In 2023, three occurred at Parris Island within less than three months. A study completed by the Marine Corps in 2019 found that during the previous decade, 29 drill instructors either ended their lives or openly acknowledged they had contemplated doing so – an aberration the study's authors characterized as startlingly high compared with the occurrence of suicidal ideation among Marines who had never held that job. Rates of addiction and divorce among drill instructors also were higher, researchers found. Critics and relatives of those who died accuse the Marine Corps of fostering an environment that contributed to their deaths. They describe routine 90-hour-plus workweeks, sleep deprivation and an always-on culture that frequently caused the job's requisite intensity to seep into their personal lives, igniting disputes with loved ones. Others detailed bouts of depression or alcohol dependency. The Marine Corps lacks adequate services for those who are struggling and need help, and tacitly condones a culture that stigmatizes those who seek it. "We put a drastic expectation on them to act perfect," said a Marine officer who has supervised dozens of drill instructors. This top-down pressure ... "causes this stress that trickles into their home life."

Note: Read about the tragic suicides and traumas of military drone operators. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and mental health.

Drugs were the elephant in the room during the failed U.S. war in Afghanistan. Because opium was such a large part of the poor and war-torn country's economy, the fighting between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan republic often looked more like a turf war between rival narco gangs, with the U.S. military protecting some opium fields and bombing others. Afghan farmers were happy to take USAID's help while continuing to grow opium. For example, opium cultivation increased by 119 percent in the Kandahar Food Zone between 2013 and 2015, after USAID helped expand the irrigation systems there. A USAID-funded charity in Kenya allegedly covered up rampant sex abuse of children, and USAID funded a second charity in the Central African Republic a month after a major sex abuse scandal broke. The Children of God Relief Institute, which ran an orphanage for Kenyan children affected by AIDS and similar projects, received high praise from the U.S. government. From 2013 onward, USAID gave the institute $29.3 million. In 2021, a whistleblower told USAID that the charity was harboring a dark secret. USAID's inspector general soon determined that Children of God Relief Institute officials "knew or should have known of multiple incidents" of child sex abuse "but failed to take effective remedial measures to address the abuse." In some cases, the victims were forced to apologize for provoking their own abuse, The Washington Post reports.

Note: Watch our latest video on government waste, where we take a thoughtful look at the current political landscape and explore powerful solutions that have the potential to tackle wasteful spending and restore financial freedom. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on the war on drugs.

The embattled US Agency for International Development has engaged in "willful sabotage of congressional oversight" over recent years while doling out taxpayer dollars to groups that overbilled the US and possibly gave funds to terrorists, Sen. Joni Ernst alleged. [Ernst] listed a slew of examples on social media this week on why "USAID is one of the worst offenders of waste in Washington." This includes $2 million in funding related to Moroccan pottery classes, some $2 million backing trips to Lebanon, over $1 million to fund research in the Wuhan lab, $20 million to make a Sesame Street in Iraq and $9 million in humanitarian aid that "ended up in the hands of violent terrorists." The White House has similarly outlined "waste and abuse" in USAID as the Trump administration eyes a dramatic overhaul of the agency. In a Wednesday letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ernst ... cited her concerns about wasteful spending and recounted obstruction she faced from USAID. In one example she highlighted, an inspector general discovered that Chemonics, a USAID contractor, overbilled the feds by "as much as $270 million through fiscal year 2019" and was caught "possibly offering kickbacks to terrorist groups." Chemonics had been heavily involved in a $9.5 billion USAID initiative to beef up global health supply chains, which ultimately ended in dozens of arrests and indictments over the resale of agency-funded products on the black market.

Note: USAID may have funded the creation of COVID-19 and has funneled billions into Ukraine. Could it be that this organization is a front for an intelligence agency?

Viral social media claims from last night regarding USAID and Politico ... suggested that ongoing spending cuts at USAID, the foreign aid agency, were shutting down domestic media outlets supposedly dependent on government money. There is no evidence that the freeze in USAID funding had any impact on Politico payroll. That said, USAID does separately fund various questionable news operations. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a major investigative news outlet responsible for the Panama Papers and other blockbuster news series, relies heavily on State Department and USAID funding. Officials have used their leverage over OCCRP to influence editorial and personnel decisions at the outlet. USAID money flows to contractors operating news outlets worldwide, such as Pact, Inc. and the East West Management Institute. Yesterday, I wrote about USAID contractor Internews, which operates and funds several Ukrainian news outlets, many of which have called for censoring pro-peace American journalists and activists over false allegations that they are Russian agents. Most insidiously, these Ukrainian outlets act as independent fact-checkers, providing outsourced content moderation services to Meta and TikTok. In other words, these outlets operate as convenient third parties for the U.S. government to censor dissident voices in ways it could not do directly.

Note: USAID may have funded the creation of COVID-19 and has funneled billions into Ukraine. Could it be that this organization is a front for an intelligence agency? For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.