Based on a journalistic exposé, I yesterday considered the problem of research-institute corruption at "Think Tanks for Sale or Rent." Sadly, the undermining of their and my credibility continues; this blog documents some of that malfeasance.
Lee Smith responds to the same exposé I did at "How Peace Negotiator Martin Indyk Cashed a Big, Fat $14.8 Million Check From Qatar." (September 17, 2014)
Oct. 2, 2014 update: Brookings' President Strobe Talbott and Smith exchange letters today.
Dec. 6, 2016 update: The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, one of the world's leading think tanks, has taken in £25 million in cash over five years, or more than a quarter of its income, from the Bahraini ruling family, the Guardian revealed today. Worse, confidential documents seen by the Guardian "reveal that IISS and the Bahraini royals agreed to 'take all necessary steps' to keep most of the donations secret." Comment: This news does incalculable damage to IISS' reputation.
June 2, 2017 update: Writing for Forbes, Adam Andrzejewski shows in "Brookings Institution -- The Progressive Jukebox Funded By U.S. Taxpayers" that Brookings took in $19.5 million since 2008 in grants, sub-grants, contracts, and sub-contracts from the U.S. government, including $23,000 in 2015 from Barack Obama's "Office of the President" for employee training. Andrzejewski sums up his research: "In many cases, Brookings doesn't resemble a think tank, but a jukebox – add a little coin and Brookings will play your tune, if the price is right."
May 14, 2017 update: Brookings is at it again, sending Martin Indyk to Doha to sign "an agreement to carry out a research project on the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world." The amount involved is not specified.
 Martin Indyk and Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi signed an agreement in the presence of the Qatari foreign minister. |
June 5, 2017 update: How awkward: The cutting of all relations by the Saudi, UAE, Egyptian, and other governments with Qatar won't make life easier at Brookings' Center for Middle East Policy.
Aug. 9, 2017 update: Now comes news that one of Washington's sleepiest think tanks, the Middle East Institute, has secretly received a whopping $20 million from the United Arab Emirates' government in 2016-17 via The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), an Abu Dhabi-based think tank.
According to Ryan Grim, who broke the news, the money allows the institute, according to the agreement, to
augment its scholar roster with world class experts in order to counter the more egregious misperceptions about the region, inform U.S. government policy makers, and convene regional leaders for discreet dialogue on pressing issues.
The agreement comes from the leaked e-mail account of the UAE ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba. Presumably, the "egregious misperceptions" concern Qatar. Bilal Saab is one of the "world class experts" hired with the money.
The report also contains juicy details about relations between Otaiba and both the Atlantic Council and the Center for a New American Security.
The actual providing of the $20 million makes for interesting reading. Saif Mohamed Al Hajeri is the CEO of Tawazun Economic Council and Tawazun Holding:
"Ambassador Yousef Otaiba kindly informed our chairman, Richard Clarke of the ECSSR grant," Wendy Chamberlin, MEI's president, wrote to Saif Al Hajeri in September 2016.
Otaiba was blind copied on the note, which he had previously proofread and suggested be delivered to both Hajeri and to Dr. Jamal Al-Suwaidi, head of ECSSR. "We are most appreciative of your support and ask that you acknowledge this letter as accurately reflecting the understandings," Chamberlin wrote to Suwaidi, helpfully including MEI's bank account details so the funds could be transferred.
Despite the reference to the UAE think tank, it was actually an entity controlled by Hajeri that made the payments. As Richard Clarke explained to Chamberlin in a separate email, written January 11, 2016, after Clarke met with Hajeri:
"Hajeri asked that I provide him with a document expressing this understanding, something about MEI and the Campaign Fund for his records. He said he had already spoken to the Crown Prince, who is the Chairman of his Board and that the paperwork is merely a formality for their own internal audit and records.
"He said the funds would come from Tawazun, from a fund they had created into which companies owing offsets could donate cash in lieu of projects. He stressed that he did not want us to contact the companies."
The payments were broken up into four lumps of $5 million each, but there was a hiccup.
Hajeri was uncomfortable about how the donation would look if it became public. In July 2016, Clarke wrote him, copying Chamberlin, with reassurances.
"MEI plans no announcement of the contribution," he assured. "In November, at the Annual Banquet and 70th anniversary, i will say that we are half way to our goal of $40m in pledges, from a variety of our past friends and donors."
In 2017, he added, they would be required to file a public tax return with the government. "That will identify all sources of revenue. Because we are a Not-for-Profit institution, our filing will be available for public inspection. It is possible a reporter might look at the file and write a story, but that also may not happen," he advises. "We understand that you do not want to brag about the gift or have something named after you, but we believe that steps to 'hide' the contribution would not be a good idea. It would look like we are trying for some reason to cover up the relationship. That would provoke questions and suspicion. We are proud of our long history with the UAE."
In October 2016, Clarke reached out again to Hajeri. "Yousef said he discussed with you the delay that we have incurred with Dr. Jamal," Clarke fretted. "We are at the point of starting construction, but can not proceed without the fund transfer."
Hajeri replied and copied Otaiba. "I had a meeting with Dr. Jamal this afternoon and we agreed on the way forward," he said. "I am transferring the 20$ M tomorrow to the ECSSR and they will directly transfer them to the institute."
Sep. 18, 2017 update: Christine Rosen writes at "The Do-Not-Think Tank" not about foreign influence on research institutes but domestic. Her subtitle: "Google and other Big Tech companies are a growing threat to open discourse." Excerpts:
On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank's relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America's "standards of openness and institutional collegiality." He says he was fired for his staunch antitrust views on the biggest technology companies and, in specific, his praise for the EU's decision in June to levy a $2.7 billion fine on Google for unfair market practices.
Rosen makes clear she accepts Lynn's version of events. She concludes:
In an ideal world, think tanks offer a place both for policy-minded scholarship and for refugees from politics, academia, and the media who might otherwise have no institutional support. At their best, they generate ideas that can improve policymaking and inform the public. But pay-for-play is a deepening ethical challenge for these institutions.
Oct. 19, 2018 update: The post-Khashoggi headline reads "Washington think tank says 'no' to Saudi funds," but to me the real news is that the Middle East Institute received $2 million two years ago from the Saudi government. In addition, it participated in "educational and cultural programs [that] it had organized that were bankrolled with Saudi funds." No wonder MEI has been such a lapdog. Oh, Michael Isikoff explains, and this is just bump in the road:
it is unclear exactly how far the Middle East Institute's new policy goes. Clarke measured his words, saying the institute won't accept any Saudi funds "at the moment." He said the organization also won't return any of the $2 million it had previously received from the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
Dec. 7, 2018 update: More purchased opinions at Brookings, this time money from Huawei Technologies, Inc., the Chinese telecommunications company. It contributed between $100,000 and $249,000 to Brookings in the period July 2012-June 2013 and at least $300,000 in the period July 2016-June 2018.
One of Huawei's gains from this was an October 2017 study, "Benefits and Best Practices of Safe City Innovation." Isaac Fish explains in the Washington Post:
The report included a case study praising the Kenyan capital Nairobi and the Chinese city of Lijiang for implementing new technology in policing. What the report failed to mention is that the controversial Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei provided the technology for both cities, or that Huawei is one of the world's leading sellers of Safe City equipment, which the company describes as "cutting-edge" security to improve policing and oversight. The Brookings report did, at least, disclose who provided support for the research: "Support for this publication was generously provided by Huawei." In other words, Brookings praised Huawei's technology in a report sponsored by Huawei.
Further, the lead author of the report, Darrell M. West, a Brookings vice president has a connection to Huawei that
goes back at least to 2012, when he spoke about broadband development at a Huawei conference in Barcelona, according to Huawei's website. In 2013, West met Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei at a technology conference, according to his 2014 book Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust, which Brookings Institution Press published. Although news accounts describe Ren as reclusive, West writes, he found Ren "charming, articulate, and funny." ...
In 2014, West spoke at Huawei Innovation Day in Milan. ... At that Huawei-sponsored event, West took Huawei's side. "I think the way that Huawei has been singled out by the U.S. government has been unfair and counterproductive," West said. West has spoken at several Huawei events. ... West attended Huawei's fourth annual European Innovation Day in Paris in 2016, where he shared "his thoughts on how wireless technology is reshaping our lives," according to a Huawei press release.
But West's most eyebrow-raising speaking event came in November 2017, when he presented the findings of his October report at a Huawei conference in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. Huawei's website posted a story entitled "Brookings Institution releases report ranking global cities on public safety innovation at Huawei Asia Pacific Innovation Day 2017," featuring a photo of West speaking. The PowerPoint presentation is online. The slides feature the Brookings logo — but a sentence in small font on the last slide includes a copyright, which Horne said "was not in our version of the final slides," and so "we are contacting Huawei and asking them to remove it, as it is not accurate." It reads: "Copyright©2017 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved."
Dec. 18, 2018 update: Al-Arabiya summarizes reports in the Financial Times and Daily Caller, adding some of its own research, in "How Qatar is paying US institutions $1.3 billion to gain 'dubious influence'."
Jan. 2, 2020 update: Ben Freeman of the Center for International Policy has published Foreign Funding of Think Tanks in America, a 32-page analysis of "foreign funding at the top fifty think tanks in America, as ranked by the University of Pennsylvania's Global Go To Think Tank Index, based on criteria like the quality and reputation of the think tanks research and the reach of its publications."
Freeman found that more than $174 million in nearly 900 different foreign donations from more than 80 countries in 2014-18 went to these fifty think tanks. Norway, United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates topped the donor countries; the World Resources Institute, the Center for Global Development, and the Brookings Institution topped the recipients.
The study calls for think tanks to be required by law "to publicly disclose funding from foreign powers."
June 1, 2020 update: The German Marshall Fund of the United States acknowledges receiving over $100,000 from the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSIAD).
Aug. 7, 2020 update: In a major report for the Washington Free Beacon, Eliana Johnson reports on corruption at the Atlantic Council with regard to the Republic of Turkey. Ankara gained such influence over the council that it "routinely object[ed] to the panelists—and even guests—participating in the organization's Turkey events because their views did not align with those of the Erdogan government." For example, it canceled a panel at its 2015 Istanbul conference featuring Turkish journalist Asli Aydıntaşbaş after it objected to her participation.
It's so bad that "seven foreign policy experts told the Washington Free Beacon that the Atlantic Council is an outlier, taking more money from more undemocratic and corrupt governments than its counterparts." Johnson then looks in detail at the case of Amir Handjani and the corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma. She concludes:
While the Atlantic Council has maintained that the foreign money flowing into its coffers has no sway over its scholarship and programming, others say that the money inevitably affects scholarship, even if only the choice of topics the organization's scholars choose to focus on—and, more importantly, the ones they avoid.
The Atlantic Council's publications on Turkey, for example, sidestep some of the most contentious issues in the U.S.-Turkey relationship, including Ankara's troubled ties with Europe and the country's adventurism in the Middle East.
Oct. 13, 2020 update: Eliana Johnson reports for the Washington Free Beacon that, although disclosure of their foreign donors is not a legal requirement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asks that think tanks reveal this information. In a speech to be delivered today, he will state:
To protect the integrity of civil society institutions, the Department requests henceforth that think tanks and other foreign policy organizations that wish to engage with the Department disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments, including state-owned or state-operated subsidiary entities.
Nov. 24, 2020 update: Craig Singleton looks at the Chinese case in "Follow the Money: Exposing China's Influence Operations at Academic Institutions and Think Tanks."
Apr. 27, 2021 update: Armin Rosen exposes the Quincy Institute of Trita Parsi as a cesspool at "Washington's Weirdest Think Tank."
June 9, 2022 update: Things have gone from bad to worse at Brookings. Court documents indicate that John R. Allen, its president, secretly lobbied for the government of Qatar, lied to investigators about his role, and tried to withhold evidence sought by a federal subpoena. These alleged activities took place, however, before Allen joined Brookings. He is now on leave from the institute. June 12, 2022 update: Allen has resigned from Brookings.
June 16, 2022 update: A House bill introduced today, the Fighting Foreign Influence Act, by Rep. Jared Golden (Democrat of Maine) and others "would require tax-exempt organizations, including think tanks, to publicly disclose any high-dollar gifts from foreign governments or foreign political parties. It then directs the Treasury Department to publish the total amount of such contributions from each foreign government and each foreign political party." The amount involved is $50,000 in a given year.
June 21, 2022 update: More apparent corruption at Brookings, this time concerning Tamara Wittes: "Biden USAID Nominee Lavished Praise on Saudi Arabia—Until It Stopped Funding Her Think Tank."
July 28, 2022 update: Private donors, notably the Koch brothers, can also be a tribulation. Witness the experience of the Atlantic Council, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Joe Cirincione.
Aug. 16, 2022 update: The U.S. government has started to take interest in the Qatar-Brookings and other foreign liaisons, with the intention of requiring the complicity think tanks to register as foreign agents. See Senator Chuck Grassley's press release on this topic, "Senators Push DOJ On FARA Compliance Of Brookings Institution."
Sep. 19, 2022 update: Cynthia Farahat reviews the problem at "Top Foreign Funder Of Transnational Terrorism Funds Think Tank That Staffs Democrat Presidential Administrations."
Nov. 28, 2022 update: Chuck Ross reports on the Atlantic Council's work on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
Jan. 18, 2023 update: And more: the head of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe, penned a glowing oped on the UAE without acknowledging the funds received from Abu Dhabi.
Jan. 20, 2023 update: Now, the isolationist think tank, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, is exposed.
Sep. 28, 2023 update: The Atlantic Council also took Ukrainian money. We learn that from the Hunter Biden investigation. Biden's employer, Burisma, the Washington Free Beacon reports, donated "hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Atlantic Council. In exchange, the think tank hosted events for Burisma and touted the company's claims to seek energy independence from Russia."
Nov. 21, 2023 update: Human Rights Watch is not a think tank but its receipt of $3 million from Qatar bears noting here.
