Tl;dr: Elon Musk summed up the whole f**king farce succinctly:

We wonder how the American taxpayer feels about their hard-earned cash being taken away from them and used for this purpose…

(Article by Tyler Durden republished from ZeroHedge.com)

In addition to propping up far-left corporate media outlets like Politico and the BBC with taxpayer funds, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled half a billion dollars to a secretive non-governmental organization operating a global news propaganda matrix.

WikiLeaks published the bombshell report in the overnight hours that shows the massive taxpayer-funded state propaganda network – operating as a shady NGO – called “Internews Network”: 

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.

Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at http://archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names including one based out of the Cayman Islands. Since 2008, when electronic records begin, more than 95% of IN’s budget has been supplied by the US government (thread follows).

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over…

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

USAID (and State) funneled nearly half a billion dollars through this building which is at “876 7th St Arcata, CA 95521-6358”. The IRS and IN government contracts list this address as the current registered address for IN although it was clearly abandoned by December 2024. Shot… pic.twitter.com/ELzv3G4p5l

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

IN’s funding has doubled since Trump’s first-term victory, as the Deep State poured billions into combating so-called misinformation and disinformation targeting conservative media worldwide—all under the guise of “saving democracy.”

IN’s funding has doubled since 2016: pic.twitter.com/8jnO6DMJwM

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

IN’s complex funding graph.

Where Internews fits in the funding graph (h/t @DataRepublican) https://t.co/d11oX7nmFqpic.twitter.com/47xMOJsPeJ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

The bio for IN CEO Jeanne Bourgault shows past jobs at Wired, Guardian, and other corporate media outlets.

Bio for Jeanne Bourgault: pic.twitter.com/vZMGXfIpcA

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

Not surprising.

Removed Internews Network (IN) page of its chief executive Jeanne Bourgault at the Clinton Global Initiative (2023) pic.twitter.com/hKInv2i9m2

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

Speaking at the globalist Davos event last year, IN’s CEO argued that global advertisers should prioritize spending ad dollars on “good news.” In other words, this would pressure companies to spend exclusively on far-left corporate media outlets while ensuring they slash ad spending on alternative media websites that do not promote state propaganda.

American taxpayers funded the global censorship matrix that has lied about wars, covid origins, vaccines, and go down the list…

Now I want you to listen to me very closely: when the CEO of USAID’s Internews pressured advertisers to create exclusion lists to only fund approved news sources, she was carrying out USAID’s formal policy goal to have USAID partners do “advertiser outreach” to “redirect funding” https://t.co/NVI6DtUfclpic.twitter.com/vyWReP0epx

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 8, 2025

Wikileaks shows the moment in time when IN “lost its way”… And you’ll never guess how.

How IN lost its way (2006, John Hopkins University Magazine):https://t.co/6L8NsDfJFspic.twitter.com/xLr7xELcAN

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

IN’s media matrix spans worldwide.

Here are the downstream holdings on IN via public records forensics data:

“Internews is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to give people the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard,” the NGO stated in an IRS 990 filing as its purpose of businesses.

Public records data shows IN has many business purposes worldwide, all in an effort to control a media matrix and ensure only state propaganda is told on the local level.

How does it feel to know that your tax dollars are funding a state propaganda media matrix around the world?

Read more at: ZeroHedge.com