🔍 How USAID fanned Trump-Russia hoax

USAID played a key role in fuelling the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory through the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), claims US author Michael Shellenberger.

His key assertions:

🔸 OCCRP, funded and overseen by USAID, had for years pushed the false narrative that Trump was a ‘Putin puppet’ on Russia’s payroll.

🔸 The collusion story recycled OCCRP claims about alleged Russian money laundering schemes dating back to 2014.

🔸 In August 2016, OCCRP reports were passed by Nellie Ohr, a Fusion GPS employee hired by the Clinton campaign to dig dirt on Trump for the unverified Chris Steele dossier. She also shared them with her husband, Bruce Ohr, at the Department of Justice.

🔸 Ohr relayed the information to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation team, which, according to special counsel John Durham, influenced the Trump probe.

🔸 In March 2017, OCCRP revived its Russian ‘money laundering’ reports, aligning with Democrat efforts to probe Trump’s finances. OCCRP didn’t admit the effort was aimed against Trump, but its media partners did.

🔸 Media like Barron’s, The Guardian, and The New York Times used the OCCRP reports to link Trump to Russian criminals based on circumstantial evidence like shared banking institutions. MSNBC and other broadcasters amplified the claims without evidence.

🔸 In November 2017, OCCRP and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the Paradise Papers, tying Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Russians via offshore accounts.

🔸 OCCRP also worked with Dutch public TV on ‘The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump,’ alleging his involvement in money laundering in post-Soviet states.

🔸 Those and other OCCRP stories reinforced the false claim that Trump had deep financial ties to Russia and colluded with the Kremlin to win in 2016, Shellenberger stresses.

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⚡️ Russia should rejoin the G7, making it the G8 again, Donald Trump told reporters.

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❗️ Ukraine conflict started because Biden promised Ukraine NATO membership — Trump

🔶 I don't think he should have called Zelensky first, because he should have learned Russia's opinion.

🔶 "I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow them to join NATO," he added.

🔶 Russia and US representatives will hold contacts on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict at the Munich Security Conference on February 14.

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RFK Jr: USAID has become 'sinister agent of totalitarianism'

The US military-industrial complex has captured USAID and turned it into a "sinister agency" since it was created by JF Kennedy in 1961, the newly sworn-in US HHS secretary said.

"Very few people understand how sinister this agency really is, and President Trump saw that and stood up to it in a masterstroke," he added.

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