At this point, my head is metaphorically spinning as new revelations about the money-laundering, journalism-bribery and astounding abuse of U.S. taxpayer funds just under a single bloated, unaccountable, Democratic ideologue-infested agency are coming out left and right, from credible sources and marginal ones, as the crumbling Axis denies, obfuscates, screams, threatens, and throws up dust. I confess: I don’t have the time or the skills to gather all of the information, vet it, and explain it. That’s not my job, either. I resent the fact—actually “resent” is not a strong enough word—that our most prominent journalists who should be informing the public regarding the USAID/Politico scandal are doing anything but.
Thus the thread on the post yesterday introducing the topic includes among the most recent of its 60 comments (as of this moment), a sincere reader offering this: “I just spent some time today since this hit the news on the USASPENDING site and confirmed Politico only received two awards, one for 20 thousand, the other for 24 thousand dollars from the USAID. So it does appear your post is wrong.” No, what’s wrong is that the actual expenditures have been disguised, hidden, mis-labled, and been examined through so many disparate sources that it is impossible for even well-intentioned readers to answer the question, “What’s going on here?” The Axis propaganda media news site Mediate made the same claim as the commenter, quoting Politico’s management that the “subscription” support was as pure as the driven snow. As with the other “usual suspects” like CNN’s hack media ethics watchdog Brain Stelter, the current strategy is to pretend this is much ado about nothing. Stelter’s defense: Why isn’t DOGE going after waste in misspent funds in the Defense Department?
Who can you trust? Apparently nobody. And that’s dangerous and frightening. AND I have no idea what to do about it.
I would have once expected the Columbia Journalism Review to be a source that might give definitive intelligence on this matter. Here, after hundreds of words attacking Trump, Musk, and DOGE, it tells us,
$268 million [of the now frozen USAID funds] was earmarked to fund “independent media and the free flow of information” this year. In the recent past, USAID had boasted of supporting more than six thousand journalists, around seven hundred independent newsrooms, and nearly three hundred media-focused civil society groups in thirty or so countries…
Including ours? “Independent” journalism being funded by a U.S. agency with a political agenda is an oxymoron anywhere. What would U.S. pundits say if it learned that, say, Russia, Ukraine or Israel was sending funds to the New York Post or some of its reporters to encourage them to be “independent”?
Most of the revelations about the USAID-Politico connection have come from social media, requiring a click obsession to track the sources down, with the main reporting on the developments coming from sources like this New Jersey publication, which wrote yesterday in part,
Documents revealed that from 2024, under the Biden administration, Politico received approximately $9.6 million in funding over just over a year. This funding was distributed across various branches of the organization, though the exact purposes of these funds have not been publicly detailed by Politico or the government agencies involved….Political analysts and media watchdogs have been quick to comment on the implications of such funding. “The revelation of government funding to media outlets like Politico raises serious questions about editorial independence and the potential for conflicts of interest,” said media critic David Smith. “[I]t’s a stark reminder of how governmental financial support can influence, or at least be perceived to influence, journalism.”
The numbers being cited as what USAID and other agencies paid Politico for its subscription-based Politico Pro vary from source to source. Here’s RedState, contradicting that 9.6 million figure:
“Left-leaning news outlet Politico received over thirty-four million dollars from USAID and other government agencies. That money went to pay for “subscriptions” for various bureaucratic officials, including “pro” subscriptions that add up to over $10,000 a pop…A breakdown of some of the expenditures shows USAID paid $443,998 for just 37 subscriptions to Politico for FDA officials. Another outlay for “subscriptions” cost $862,025.
Red State echoes what I wrote about the conflict of interest such support created for Politico: “Politico has never disclosed those payments even as they’ve written pieces covering USAID, posing as unbiased arbiters of truth. That represents one of the biggest scandals in the history of the press. The United States government was funneling money to a left-wing news outlet that has repeatedly done the bidding of the Democratic Party. As an example, you may remember Politico as the same news site that laundered the infamous letter from “51 intelligence officials” saying the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.”
Why yes, I do remember that!
Over at the conservative news and opinion empire PJ Media, I am told that “a new pass through the data shows that both the New York Times and even the BBC had seven-figure income streams from USAID, too.” The Associated Press is on the list. Among the sources of this intel are bloggers and social media posts. Fox News last night revealed that Reuters and the worst and most left-biased factchecker of them all, PolitiFact, also received USAID money.
Gee, it sure would be nice if we had some kind of trustworthy, reliable democratic institution that could be relied upon to do some independent investigation of situation like this and put all the pieces together.
Before starting this post, I searched for “Politico” and “USAID” on the New York Times site. Nothing.
I wonder if the new departed EA commenter who quit after declaring that I had “drunk the Kool-Aid” regarding the Russian collusion claims against Trump being an Axis hoax would say that this story too is a “conspiracy theory.” Oh, probably.
Some related points in no particular order:
….Coincidentally (or not), this week Politico announced that it was having trouble paying its staff.
….Ian Miles Chong (you’re not supposed to pay any attention to what he reports because he’s a conservative activist) found that the Department of Defense provided $9,147,532.00 to Reuters for “ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED) LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECEPTION (LSD)”
…Ed Morrissey writes, “Let’s not forget the context in which all of these funds have flowed to the supposedly “independent” news media. The State Department actively worked to suppress criticism of news orgs like the NYT and Politico through its Global Engagement Center and the Global Disinformation Index it produced to scare advertisers away from truly independent platforms that challenged the Biden administration’s policies and positions. Now we know that USAID and the State Department provided funding for the Protection Racket Media through various guises, including in Politico’s case $12,000 subscriptions to their paywalled articles. We knew about the racket. Now we see the payoff.”
…US State Department Recalls All USAID Staffers from Foreign Assignments. Good. UPDATE: Trump fired most of them. Also good. The argument that USAID should be allowed to continue sending money to dubious projects and entities while its work is “evaluated” is an argument for years of continuing waste and corruption.
…President Trump foolishly gave most of the Axis media an opportunity to ignore the USAID story yesterday by making the over-the-top statement about converting Gaza to resort paradise, or something. I kept checking: while Fox News was all USAID and DOGE (and screaming Democrats in their ridiculous protest), CNN and MSNBC spend most of their airtime accusing Trump of ethnic cleansing.
…Incredibly, freaked-out Democrats are saying that Trump can’t control USAID with executive orders. USAID was created by an Executive Order.
…Two banned commenters yesterday insisted that the scandal is contrived because money went to Politico during the Trump administration. Yes, it is true, Trump did not understand the degree to which the branch of the government that he supposedly controlled was working to undermine him. He learned.
ADDED: This story had caused me to permanently avoid Memeorandum, Ann Althouse’s favorite headline aggregator. This morning, like the Times, it had no links to the Politico-USAID story.
Ethics Alarms 
The abjectly stinking rot goes deep.
But here’s where Trump cleaning shop cannot get distracted:
The Democrats will rapidly recognize that the USAID graft is lost. A clue that they and any other politicians have dirty stinking arrangements with other agencies and departments to line their own pockets with tax dollars is if they decide to “cooperate” with cleaning up USAID. They’d only do that if they knew they could keep focus off of other swampy entities riven with graft.
Sixty comments. The DNC paid trolls are suddenly back in action. Interesting they were totally MIA ever since the election. Now they’re back all of a sudden like a bunch of cicadas. Amateur commenters don’t say things like, “Jack. You’re wrong,” or “There’s not proof of that.” These pros are incredibly obstinate and uncivil. They’re paid to simply counter anything said here that is not approved blob stuff. Do not engage.
Jack go to USAspending.go/search , type in Politico for recipient and USAID as awarding agency.
You’ll see the USAID only gave Politico 44 thousand dollars. Here I did it for you:
https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=7fa5cc1e857f525fe6664de655c64411
It’s confusing is because people started a rumor on Twitter and don’t know how to read data properly.
It’s not a twitter rumor. The subscriptions are real. Lots of sources, lots of data.https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-cancels-politico-government-funding-200829761.html. The subscriptions are absurdly expensive, and government should not be paying any media organization that kind of money for its product. Confounding grants, contracts and subscriptions is a problem, but doesn’t change the conflict of interest. The DC Bar pays me over the year for my “product.” Any time I wrote about the bar, I note that as necessary disclosure. I also have chosen not to focus on DC Bar ethics matters because I am a contractor. And I don’t get millions of dollars
agree to disagree. Yes the USAID paid subscriptions to Politico for 44 thousand dollars is real per the primary source. The 8 million you said the USAID paid Politico is not real. Did you look at the link I took the time to prepare for you?
Yes. Thanks. Even the Washington Post confirms the 8-9 million figure; the Post just rationalizes it.
But not that USAID paid Politico 8 million. USAID only paid Politico 44 thousand, even according to the Washington Post.
The Politico Pro service is wildly out pf price range for any reasonable news service,
I mean, is it? Have you ever thought about the price of subscription models of other highly specialized journals before 3 days ago? What’s the price of other similar new sources?
They don’t need “highly specialized journals.” They aren’t scholars. Almost no lawyers subscribe to “highly specialized journals” because the information is largely available for free. And one subscription should suffice for a whole staff anyway.
I don’t think only scholars need specialized journals. They have these types of publications for lawyers, people in the energy sector, policy makers, business and finance pros, etc.
Also, subscription models can be for 1 individual or you have to pay more to allow your entire staff or more to have access to it.
Also a scam. Anyone can take the information in a subscription post and select items of value for others in the office to see. It would be like my wife and I having to have two digital subscriptions to the NYT. Why are you like a dog with a bone on this topic? FACT: a news organization cannot be dependent on the government for large amounts of money without disclosing it to all readers. A government should not be paying millions for anything to a news source or journalism organization, product or service—makes no difference where the money is coming from or listed under. Conflict of interest. Appearance of impropriety. Government influence over the press. Period. No defense. It doesn’t matter whether the total is from one agency or 50. If there are no payments, episodes like Politico releasing the letter from the intelligence experts discounting Hunter Biden’s laptop don’t undermine public trust.
You think it’s a scam to charge one person the same price vs 100 people in an organization because they can share the info together?
Odd position.
Anyone can take the information in a subscription post and select items of value for others in the office to see.
So?
It would be like my wife and I having to have two digital subscriptions to the NYT.
So?
FACT: a news organization cannot be dependent on the government for large amounts of money without disclosing it to all readers.
Says who? Is that a law? It’s not.
Conflict of interest. Appearance of impropriety.
I don’t think so. Don’t read them then if you think the money they get biases their reporting.
A government should not be paying millions for anything to a news source or journalism organization, product or service—
I think it’s fine as long as those subscriptions are used to do their jobs
It doesn’t matter whether the total is from one agency or 50. If there are no payments, episodes like Politico releasing the letter from the intelligence experts discounting Hunter Biden’s laptop don’t undermine public trust.
I don’t think so, and again if you think that, then don’t read them. No offense but I think you’re over estimating the amount of money we’re talking, and overlooking what the money was spent on.
Politico being biased or sucking or making a mistake doesn’t mean there is something nefarious going on with these subscription payments. I think these payments are totally acceptable.
“Says who? Is that a law? It’s not.” Yeah, it’s called “ethics.” You’ve been reading here a long time and you haven’t figured THAT out?
Similarly, the issue isn’t what the recipients of the service do with it, the issue is Politico accepting money from an entity it is supposed to be reporting on, and the fact that the government is a supporter of a news source that claims to be objective and independent. This is journalism Ethics 101.
OK, you don’t get ethics. Got it. Keep reading, and maybe eventually you will.
“Says who? Is that a law? It’s not.” Yeah, it’s called “ethics.” You’ve been reading here a long time and you haven’t figured THAT out?
It’s not unethical for government agencies to pay for access to journalism nor is it unethical for them to not release who subscribes to their publications because that’s not a sponsorship, partnership, etc. It’s a business transaction.
If subscriptions cause conflicts then no news outlet could sell subscriptions to anyone it reports on. Absurd.
There are also no ethic codes that prohibit selling subscriptions to government agencies… because paying for subscriptions doesn’t grant influence.
Similarly, the issue isn’t what the recipients of the service do with it, the issue is Politico accepting money from an entity it is supposed to be reporting on, and the fact that the government is a supporter of a news source that claims to be objective and independent. This is journalism Ethics 101.
Objectivity is about editorial independence, not who buys subscriptions. The government was buying a product that Politico sells. You’re also acting like Politico would cease to exist without these subscriptions or that this money is so outlandish, it MUST influence them. That’s absurd.
Should government agencies be banned from accessing high-quality reporting? No
OK, you don’t get ethics. Got it. Keep reading, and maybe eventually you will.
Not an argument.
No, its a fact.
We’re talking about large amounts of money, millions. I don’t see how that can escape you. It’s also superfluous, an unnecessary expense, and quite probably a fraudulent expenditure. Millions. From the government to a news organization that communicates about the government. This isn’t hard. It’s a textbook conflict.
Oh-–you’re cut off on this topic. You’re just sealioning and saying the same thing over and over. Move on. Moderator directive. No deviation allowed. You’re welcome to comment on any of the many other topics here.
I got 752 Prime Award Results for Politico, LLC
https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=a3eba004e7ba963380f0801d71ab0ed7
I’m not going through these but a quick glance looks pretty damning to me.
Now filter for the USAID. I already Did it for you in the link above. It’s only 44 thousand dollars.
You filtered for USAID for yourself to post here, not for me specifically.
See Extradimensional Cephalopod’s response below which covers the issue nicely in my opinion.
Question Ann, did Politico, a private media company, receive $8million dollars from government organizations?
a simple yes or no will suffice to determine your status as troll or paid obfuscator.
thank you and welcome to the blog.
Yes it appears so according to that site. But not from the USAID as everyone has been claiming.
With all due respect, I think you understood where the $8.1 million number was coming from all along and have been determined to be obtuse about it with these comments regarding the filtering of USAID.
USAID is a big problem, but it’s only part of a larger scale of government waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
We are uncovering now and I assume we will uncover soon equal amounts of money thrown away at Defense and other departments.
The claim was that the USAID gave Politico 8 million dollars. The number is actually 44 thousand. Thats what I was correcting. Thats 180 times more.
I appreciate your correction. Criticism becomes less effective when it is invokes inaccurate details. I was able to express people’s concerns below, based on the information you provided. I’d be interested in your take on it.
Sorry what’s your question?
Do you understand why, even with the corrected information on the dollar amounts, people might see the subscriptions to Politico from various government agencies as indicative of a corrupt relationship between the government and the media outlet?
I can definitely see why someone who already doesn’t trust the media and believes there’s a “Deep State” would think that.
I appreciate that. Do you see why, even with no other context, it constitutes some evidence towards the hypothesis that there is collusion between the government and the media? Or is there an alternative hypothesis that explains why it may be necessary in the course of their missions for USAID and these other government agencies to spend this much money to give their employees subscriptions to a news outlet?
And incredibly expensive subscriptions…
I would need more info than just what we’re seeing now. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but am also open to seeing proof that there’s something beyond just subsidies for subscriptions. I’m also sure there’s wasteful spending but no I dont see this as collusion of anything.
The USAID for instance does work on climate change, sustainable development, environmental policy etc. So someone working for the USAID may need access to that Environmental publication for climate policy insights, regulatory updates, etc.
Did the person who got that subscription need it? Did they use it? Did it help them do their job? Is that a normal price for a publication like that?
No one here knows so I don’t know why we would make assumptions.
Is the subscription helping this person do a better job at the USAID? Digging further is fine but I don’t jump to conclusions on complex topics. It’s easy to point and say “these people are bad here’s the proof” when you have limited background information on the topic.
And for people who are looking for this sort of thing, they of course see it as some smoking gun.
I think we agree that the government spends money, it has the burden of proof to explain why it needs to spend that money. I do find this expenditure of money implausible, based on what I have been led to understand about how government agencies gather information.
For one thing, it seems backwards to me for an environmental agency, for example, to gather information from the news. If an ordinary member of the public wants to know things about the environment, they would get information from articles published by news outlets. That’s what news outlets are for: to inform the general public about topics of interest. The information they provide is for general consumption.
When a government policy expert wants to know something, they need specialized information. They might reach out directly to the scientists who did a study. Those scientists will have critical details and insights that the public reading an article wouldn’t understand or need, but the government expert would.
If they need a general overview, they reach out to other government analysts who have been tracking and processing that information for the consumption of other government officials. Government experts are supposed to have more direct connections to their areas of expertise than just reading about it in an article.
As far as I’m aware, the only reason a government expert would need a news outlet subscription for their job is if they work at an intelligence agency and are tracking what journalists are saying on a specific topic or are watching all sources of information for anything important.
That said, I suppose all agencies have a vested interest in making sure that the media is accurately representing them. The question is how many subscriptions they need per agency per news outlet in order to monitor what the public is being told about their work.
Where might we find information about how these thousands of dollars of subscriptions were utilized?
That’s a good summary of why these subscriptions are believed to be laundered pay-offs. The Politico Pro service is wildly out pf price range for any reasonable news service, and government workers have access to free information when needed. Paying inflated prices to get money to places where it would raise suspicions is one of the oldest tricks in the book: like the “art lovers” who paid absurd amounts for Hunter Biden’s paintings
I think we agree that the government spends money, it has the burden of proof to explain why it needs to spend that money.
Agreed.
I do find this expenditure of money implausible, based on what I have been led to understand about how government agencies gather information.
I don’t. I think someone working at the USAID would want access to the best information possible.
For one thing, it seems backwards to me for an environmental agency, for example, to gather information from the news.
USAID isn’t an environmental agency and I would want the government to have access to the best reporting on a specific topic if they need it for their job. USAID is relying on someone else to gather specific information. I don’t see anything wrong with that, it would be a like a doctor or researcher who subscribes to medical journals.
When a government policy expert wants to know something, they need specialized information. They might reach out directly to the scientists who did a study. Those scientists will have critical details and insights that the public reading an article wouldn’t understand or need, but the government expert would.
How would you learn about these scientists who did this study? Usually you need a paid subscription to medical journals. And, to be clear, that’s what the Poltico E&E publication is exactly for. It wasn’t a subscription to the regular Politico dot com that normal people read. It’s a highly specialized publication. They even say on their site: Our subscribers come from a variety of industries, such as government bureaucrats, business and legal professionals, non-governmental organizations, associations, and academia personnel. Within those industries, their job titles include CEOs, policymakers, analysts, advocates, and attorneys.
Again, I see nothing wrong with this.
As far as I’m aware, the only reason a government expert would need a news outlet subscription for their job is if they work at an intelligence agency and are tracking what journalists are saying on a specific topic or are watching all sources of information for anything important.
I mean that’s one good reason. I see others. But this wasn’t for Politico dot com. Also, if I worked for the government working on policy or an assistant DA, and wanted to be up on current events, and could get a free subscription to the Times/Post/etc, I absolutely would.
That said, I suppose all agencies have a vested interest in making sure that the media is accurately representing them. The question is how many subscriptions they need per agency per news outlet in order to monitor what the public is being told about their work.
Agreed.
Where might we find information about how these thousands of dollars of subscriptions were utilized?
Good question, and that’s what we would need to know.
Easy question: they were used to underwrite Politico, which showed its gratitude by being a loyal Democratic Party propaganda agent.
“…Two banned commenters yesterday insisted that the scandal is contrived because money went to Politico during the Trump administration. Yes, it is true, Trump did not understand the degree to which the branch of the government that he supposedly controlled was working to undermine him. He learned.”
He also can’t possibly be expected to know where every dime is going. This is like expecting the CEO of McDonald’s to know that one of the cashiers in store #5631 is pilfering from the till.
Let’s review our basic logic, shall we?
I make a claim that both A and B exist.
You provide proof that A does exist.
You conclude from this that B does not exist?
The lack of evidence of the existence of something does not, by itself, disprove that something exists.
–Dwayne
People get especially good at talking past each other when they have agendas. I found a Rolling Stone article which provided some clarity on where the numbers people were getting came from, and checked against the USA Spending link to confirm.
Based on the USA Spending link, it indeed appears that USAID paid $44k to Politico. The $8-9 million figure comes from totaling what all the government agencies spent on it. Speaking precisely does help when expressing concerns.
With that stipulated, people are still concerned about a news outlet receiving millions of dollars from government agencies. I was under the impression that government employees would spend their own private money to read the news, and if a government agency needed to disseminate information among its employees, it would use its own methods of intelligence gathering or get the information from another agency that gathers intelligence. Those methods may include news subscriptions so that analysts can see what news outlets are saying, but that doesn’t require that many subscriptions. Most employees aren’t getting paid to read the news, and the government shouldn’t be gifting subscriptions. Realistically it seems implausible that a government agency should have thousands of dollars per year of subscriptions to a single news outlet.
The reason people are calling it a government subsidy is that they suspect, with considerable justification, that the government is paying for services it doesn’t really need as a way of rewarding the news outlet for serving the interests of the Democrats in violation of their journalistic integrity. Paying lots of money for services you wouldn’t otherwise pay for is a time-honored method of corruption because it offers plausible deniability. Quid pro quo isn’t always as blatant as handing someone a wad of cash.
Is that all clear?
Thank you, EC. For the work you’ve done and the clarity of your report. You’ve hit the nail on the coffin.*
___________
*My favorite malapropism (which I used to collect listening to sports talk radio) behind only, “It’s a mute point.”
Old Bill,
I will have to steal that one.
Since it is Super Bowl Sunday and Jack has a boycott because playing football causes brain damage, I submit, as Exhibit A:
Troy Aikman: “he’s got a lot of nerves running through his veins.”
Though, considering Yogi Berra pretty much tops anyone else in this department, maybe head injuries do not fully explain Aikman’s problem.
On the other hand, Yogi was a catcher….
-Jut
Thanks, that does help clarify! I was under the mistaken impression that this was garden-variety news, but if it’s a service specifically geared towards professionals, that would make a difference. It would be more of a contractor arrangement, doing work for the government and getting paid for it, but perhaps less formal than vehicle fleet suppliers, for instance.
I’m looking at the Politico E&E website and realizing that if this is a significant part of the government’s decision-making process, some of my assumptions about that decision making process may be incorrect.
If that’s the case, I would like to be able to be confident that the government would hold Politico E&E accountable for doing quality journalism by being willing to cancel those subscriptions and moving to a competitor if Politico E&E started slipping, same as (I assume) they do for other contractors. After all, even academic journals have their own host of issues, such as pressure to publish, peer review failure, and the replicability crises.
One thing I noticed from the website is the negotiable prices: “How much does E&E News cost? Our professional subscription packages start from the upper four-figure range. They can be customized based on the number of users and selection of publications to fit your organization’s needs. Please fill out this form to request for a personalized quote.” That seems odd for a government contractor. I thought those normally worked by bidding, for some reason, regardless of whether the lowest bidder is the most cost-effective option or is competent enough to do the job according to the criteria. My assumptions about government contract negotiation might be mistaken as well.
I also noticed that under About, one of the options is “Advertise with Us.” If they’re being paid so much money, why are they selling ad space? (I know–more money. I just don’t want people advertising to my congresspeople while they’re trying to read serious articles for their work. Lobbying is bad enough.)
As far as I can tell, Politico E&E is effectively a contractor gathering and analyzing information (including information on government personnel per the program’s fact sheet, which I figure must be for the benefits of activists and lobbyists, even though it doesn’t mention them).
I’m not sure I trust private organizations to curate the information that government agents see. Then again, I’m also not sure I trust the government agents to look for the information they need if it were up to them. I’d like to create a world where the government can effectively hire journalists to gather and compile information on various topics of interest and people can trust everyone involved because they have enough critical thinking to notice deception, so I suppose on its own this relationship is less suspicious than I thought.
That said, we do still have to deal with the context of the government’s and Politico’s other actions. Furthermore, I would still like to know more about the decision-making processes of government officials and how the information from Politico E&E factored into them.