The Center for Public Integrity

Who We Are

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization, was founded by Charles Lewis following a successful 11-year career in network television news.

The quality of the Center’s work, in just over a decade, has firmly established the organization as an institutional presence in Washington, D.C. With our hard-earned reputation for “public service journalism,” the Center is distinct from most other non-governmental organizations, because of our high-quality, well-documented, investigative research.

The three largest local phone companies control 83 percent of home telephone lines. The top two long distance carriers control 67 percent of that market. The four biggest cellular phone companies have 64 percent of the wireless market. The five largest cable companies pipe programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers nationwide. Those findings come from the Center for Public Integrity’s unprecedented examination of the telecommunications industry, the centerpiece of which is a first-of-its-kind, 65,000 record, searchable database containing ownership information on virtually every radio station, television station, cable television system and telephone company in America.

Captive Audience
A few big media firms dominate 4 of 5 FCC commissioners’ hometowns
WASHINGTON, 5/22/2023 — A new Center report surveying the hometowns of each of the five FCC commissioners by the Center for Public Integrity reveals a heavy concentration of ownership by large, out-of-town media companies in four of them. The report comes 11 days before the FCC decides whether to loosen media ownership rules.

On the Road Again—and Again
FCC officials rack up $2.8 million travel tab with industries they regulate
WASHINGTON, 5/22/2023 — Federal Communications Commission officials have been showered with nearly $2.8 million in travel and entertainment over the past eight years, most of it from the telecommunications and broadcast industries the agency regulates, a new study by the Center for Public Integrity has found.

A Penchant for Secrecy
Why is the FCC so determined to keep key data from the public?
WASHINGTON, 5/22/2023 — When the Federal Communications Commission decides on June 2 whether to dramatically loosen restrictions on media ownership, it will be relying largely on analyses based on proprietary databases not freely available to the public.

About the Center

The mission of the Center for Public Integrity is to provide the American people with the findings of our investigations and analyses of public service, government accountability and ethics related issues.

The Center’s books, studies and newsletters combine political science and investigative reporting, unfettered by the usual time and space constraints. Through its hard-earned reputation for “public service journalism,” the Center aims to produce high-quality, well-documented, investigative research resulting in a better-informed citizenry that demands a higher level of accountability from its government and elected leaders. The Center also extends globally its style of watchdog journalism in the public interest through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Created in 1997, ICIJ includes more than 80 leading investigative reporters and editors in over 40 countries.

Since opening its doors in downtown Washington, D.C. in 1990, the Center has released more than 100 investigative studies including 10 books. Four of them were finalists in the best investigative book category for the prestigious Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award. In 1999, Animal Underworld won that prize. Another book, Citizen Muckraking provides ordinary Americans a step-by-step guide on how professionals, such as journalists and lawyers, gather information on ethical lapses of corporate and government groups. The March 2021 book, The Cheating of America, documents how wealthy individuals and corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The Center’s report, “Our Private Legislatures: Public Service, Personal Gain,” was the winner of the 2020 IRE Award for outstanding investigative reporting in the online category. In two of the last three years, ICIJ reports have been IRE finalists. The Center’s most recent publication, Capitol Offenders is the first book-length investigation of state lawmakers’ outside interests and the influence of industry lobbying on legislative decision-making.

The Team

Board of Directors


JOSIE GOYTISOLO co-founded and served as the CEO of Divina.com, an online women’s network for the United States, Latin America and Spain. The four-time Emmy winner was an executive producer at WPLG-TV, Channel 10, in Miami. Prior to that, she was news director of the Miami-based Telemundo Television Network.


CHARLES LEWIS, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, did investigative reporting for 11 years at ABC News and CBS News, where he was a producer for 60 Minutes. The author of numerous Center books and studies, Lewis was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998.


SUSAN LOEWENBERG is the founder and producing director of L.A. Theatre Works, a nonprofit organization that provides cultural programming for public radio and outreach programming for children and at-risk youth. She has produced over 500 hours of radio dramas broadcast on National Public Radio, the BBC, Voice of America and other outlets.


PAULA MADISON is the first African American woman to become general manager at a network-owned station in a top five market. In addition to being President and General Manager of NBC4 in Los Angeles, she was named Regional General Manager for the three NBC/Telemundo television stations in Los Angeles in April 2022. Until May 2022, Madison was the Vice President and Senior Vice President of Diversity for NBC.


CHARLES PILLER, co-founding Board member and chairman, is an investigative journalist specializing in science and technology. An author of two books, he is currently a science writer for the Los Angeles Times, based in San Francisco.


ALLEN PUSEY, special projects editor for the Washington Bureau of The Dallas Morning News and Belo Broadcasting, was one of the first reporters to uncover the Savings & Loan scandal in the early 1980s. Pusey has received numerous awards for his coverage of local and national issues


BEN SHERWOOD is a bestselling author and former senior broadcast producer of the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. While at NBC, his efforts were honored three years in a row with the Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast and several national news Emmys. From 1989 to 1993 he worked as an investigative producer with ABC News’ PrimeTime Live in New York and Washington.


MARIANNE SZEGEDY-MASZAK, senior editor of U.S. News & World Report, was an Alicia Patterson Fellow in 1992. As a Pulitzer Traveling Fellow in 1986, she lived in Hungary and covered Central Europe for Newsweek and ABC Radio. A former journalism instructor at the American University School of Communication (vacances-scolaires.com), she has written extensively for a number of major magazines and newspapers.


ISABEL WILKERSON won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1994 when she was Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. She won the 1993 George Polk Award for regional reporting and was the National Association of Black Journalists’ ‘Journalist of the Year’ in 1994. In 1996-97, she was Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. Wilkerson is on leave from the Times, working on a book on the migration of African Americans from the South to the North.

Advisory Board

JAMES MacGREGOR BURNS, a political scientist, historian and Pulitzer-Prize winning Presidential biographer, serves as senior scholar at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. The author of more than a dozen books, Burns has devoted his career to the study of leadership in American political life.

JOEL CHASEMAN, Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Nearware Networks, a company pioneering the use of artificial intelligence in marketing, served as the Chairman of the Washington Post Company’s Post-Newsweek Stations, as a director of both KingWorld Productions and the Washington Post Company, as Chairman of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and as a trustee of the Museum of Radio and Television.

ALAN J. DWORSKY is an independent investment manager based in Boston, Massachusetts, who primarily works for nonprofit institutions. He and his wife established and serve as trustees of the Popplestone Foundation.

HENRY EVERETT is president of the investment partnership, Lexington Associates in New York City. He serves on the boards of several arts, educational, human rights and Jewish organizations. In 1989, the Everett Public Service Internship Program was established to place college students in summer internships at nonprofit organizations throughout the United States.

BRUCE A. FINZEN, an attorney with Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, L.L.P., played a key role in Minnesota’s landmark $6.6 billion settlement with the tobacco industry. He frequently testifies before congressional committees and state legislative committees on issues related to product liability and tort reform.

GUSTAVO GODOY, a broadcast journalist and four-time Emmy Award winner, is the executive editor and publisher of Vista, a monthly magazine that reaches Hispanic Americans in top markets across the nation. Now entering its 18th year, Vista’s circulation is more than 1.1 million per month.

HERBERT HAFIF, an attorney, pioneered class action litigation and major defense fraud cases. He was selected Trial Lawyer of the Year, Consumer Advocate of the Year, Red Cross Philanthropist of the Year and voted Outstanding President of the California Trial Bar.

REV. THEODORE HESBURGH, the President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, has served on 12 Presidential Commissions. His stature as an elder statesman in American higher education is reflected in his 135 honorary degrees, the most ever awarded to an American.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON is an author and the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania. An expert on political campaigns, she frequently appears as a commentator on CBS News, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, National Public Radio and CNN’s Inside Politics.

SONIA JARVIS, a civil rights attorney, is a Research Professor of Communications at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. She is the former director of the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation.

BILL KOVACH, the Chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, was most recently the curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. He is the former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times and editor of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

BEVIS LONGSTRETH, a retired partner of Debevoise & Plimpton, is a member of the board of trustees of New School University and the College Retirement Equities Fund. He served as a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner, a member of the Board of Governors of the American Stock Exchange and adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Law.

JOHN E. NEWMAN, JR., a businessman with investments in information and publishing companies, is the president of The John and Florence Newman Foundation, located in San Antonio, Texas. He is active in many educational, health-related and cultural nonprofit organizations.

CHARLES OGLETREE holds the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law Chair at Harvard Law School. In 2021, Professor Ogletree received the prestigious Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion of Merit from the Washington Bar Association and in 2020, was selected by the National Law Journal as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.”

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR., educator and author, has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for history and biography. He was appointed special assistant to President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and served in the White House throughout his administration. A co-founder of Americans for Democratic Action, he was the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at the Graduate School of the City University of New York before retiring in 1996.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER is a political scientist, CNN senior political analyst and Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy. A contributing editor to the Atlantic Monthly, National Journal and The Los Angeles Times, he was the Fred and Rita Richman Visiting Professor at Brandeis University in 2022.

PEARL STEWART is Director of Career Development Services at Florida A&M; University’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communication. She is the former editor of The Oakland Tribune and was a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle.

HAROLD M. WILLIAMS, former Dean of the Graduate School of Management at UCLA for seven years, is President Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, California. Williams served as the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 1977 to 1981 and currently is Of Counsel for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, author and the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, is a leading authority on race and poverty in the United States. A MacArthur Prize Fellow from 1987 to 1992, he was a recipient of the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States.

Charles Lewis

Charles Lewis is the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in Washington that conducts investigative research to uncover corruption and abuse of power by governments, corporations, and individuals involved in the political process. Since its inception in late 1989, the Center has grown to a full-time staff of 40, and issued more than 202 investigative reports, including 10 books. Under Lewis’ direction, the Center has raised and spent more than $20 million, and its investigative reports have been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) or the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) 15 times since 1996. Center findings or perspective have appeared in more than 8,000 news media stories since 1990.

Unfettered by the normal time and space limitations that confront most traditional news organizations, the Center for Public Integrity is “the best known of the independent journalism initiatives” operating today, its work comparable to such legendary muckrakers as Lincoln Steffens and I.F. Stone, according to a recent book, The Elements of Journalism (Crown 2021).

Lewis has written or co-written several of the Center’s books and studies that systematically track political influence, including The Cheating of America (Morrow 2021), The Buying of the President 2020 (Avon 2020), The Buying of the Congress (Avon 1998) and The Buying of the President (Avon 1996). In 1998, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Since 1990, he has conducted 30 news conferences at the National Press Club, many of them nationally televised. National Journal has called Lewis and the Center a “watchdog in the corridors of power.” The Chicago Tribune has said that, “if Lewis didn’t exist, somebody would have to invent him.”

The Village Voice called Lewis “the Paul Revere of our time” in early 2023 after he obtained a copy of the Justice Department’s draft legislation “sequel” to the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and posted it on the Center’s Website, www.publicintegrity.org. In 1996, The New Yorker called Lewis’ organization “the center for campaign scoops.” During that year’s presidential election campaign, the Center repeatedly uncovered political information that resonated with millions of Americans. The Lincoln Bedroom scandal, for instance, in which hundreds of campaign contributors spent the night at the Clinton White House, was broken by the Center in its publication, The Public i, earning it the Society of Professional Journalists’ 1996 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Newsletter Journalism.

Another Center report, Under the Influence II: The 1996 Presidential Candidates and Their Campaign Advisers caused a firestorm. At a news conference releasing it, just days before the New Hampshire primary, Lewis asked why Larry Pratt, a co-chairman of the Pat Buchanan campaign, had spoken at meetings attended by leaders of the Aryan Nations and the Christian Identity Movement. Within an hour, Buchanan placed Pratt “on leave” from his presidential campaign.

Four years later, The Buying of the President 2020 first revealed that Enron was George W. Bush’s top career patron. The Buying of the President quadrennial series which began in 1996 marks the only commercially-published, investigative book profiling the major presidential candidates and political parties in the U.S. and the special interests behind them.

Lewis has testified before Congress and has been interviewed hundreds of times about corruption-related issues by the national and international news media. Since 1992, he has spoken on corruption or journalism in Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, Sweden and South Africa. In early 1997, he traveled to the troubled Ferghana Valley region of Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan in Central Asia as part of a Council on Foreign Relations conflict-prevention fact-finding mission.

Lewis has initiated several new, innovative Center projects. In late 1997, he began the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), an unprecedented network of the world’s premier investigative reporters, currently 83 people in 45 countries. ICIJ globally extends the Center’s style of enterprise journalism by focusing on issues that transcend nation-state borders.

In 1998, Lewis and the Center undertook a nationwide investigation of corruption in America’s state legislatures, in which more than 7,000 state lawmakers were individually contacted by phone or mail, and their annual financial disclosure forms were posted on the Internet. The Center’s investigative reports and electronic dissemination of public documents in the states has received two national journalism awards.

In 2021, he created Global Access, a groundbreaking Center project to monitor and report on corruption, government accountability and openness in every country in the world. Utilizing respected social scientists and investigative reporters in the field — simultaneously — this comprehensive, unique approach combines the Internet and other new technologies with quantitative methodology and authoritative, accessible narrative.

For eleven years, from 1977 through 1988, Lewis did investigative reporting at ABC News, and at CBS News as a producer for senior correspondent Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes. His stories twice received Emmy nominations in the “Outstanding Investigative Reporting” category by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Lewis has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation and many other publications. He serves on the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Committee to Protect Journalists. He began his first job in journalism at the age of seventeen, working nights in the sports department of the Wilmington (Delaware) News-Journal.

A native of Newark, Delaware, Lewis holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington and a B.A. in political science with honors and distinction from the University of Delaware.

Staff

Charles Lewis
Founder and Executive Director
In 1990, Charles Lewis authored the Center’s premiere study, America’s Frontline Trade Officials. In addition to prompting a General Accounting Office Investigation and a Justice Department ruling, the study was used by four presidential candidates in 1992. The Center has published over 202 investigative reports, and Lewis has been the author of several of them, including The Cheating of America, The Buying of the President, The Buying of the Congress and The Buying of the President 2020. Since 1992, Lewis has spoken on corruption or journalism in Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, Sweden and South Africa. In early 1997, he traveled to the troubled Ferghana Valley region of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan in Central Asia as part of a Council on Foreign Relations conflict-prevention delegation. From 1977 to 1988, he did investigative reporting at ABC News and CBS News, most recently as a producer for 60 Minutes assigned to correspondent Mike Wallace. In 1998, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded Lewis a MacArthur Fellowship. He is a native of Newark, Delaware, and holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a B.A. in political science with honors and distinction from the University of Delaware.

Bill Allison
Managing Editor
Before joining the Center in January 1997, Bill Allison worked for eight years for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He was a researcher for two-time Pulitzer Prize-winners Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele on their 1996 series “America: Who Stole the Dream,” which analyzed the impact of 40 years of government trade, tax, and immigration policies on the American middle class. Before that, Allison helped create a database that analyzed absentee ballots cast in a 1994 Pennsylvania senatorial district in Philadelphia; The Inquirer’s findings of vote fraud were confirmed by a federal court, which overturned the election. Allison oversaw research on the Center’s 1998 book, The Buying of the Congress, and contributed to two of the Congress studies that came out that year, Safety Last: The Politics of E. Coli and Other Food-Borne Killers and In the Unlikely Event: The Politics of Airline Safety. He was senior editor of the book The Buying of the President 2020 and Off the Record: What Media Corporations Don’t Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas. He was co-author with Charles Lewis of The Cheating of America, about tax avoidance and evasion by the America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. Allison is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Cathy Roberts Sweeney
Director of Finance and Administration
A veteran of 28 years in the news magazine business, Cathy Sweeney came to the Center from U.S. News & World Report where she was Manager of Administration. An administrator for more than 15 years of her career, she has extensive experience in many areas of employer/employee relations, ranging from office management, human resources, financial oversight and payroll to security and facilities management. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, Sweeney graduated with honors from Catholic University with a B.A. in English.

Maud S. Beelman
Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
A 20-year news veteran, Maud Beelman has spent most of her career in foreign news, including working as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, where she covered German reunification, the post-Gulf War Kurdish crisis in Iran and Iraq, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-1996. Beelman was a 1996 fellow of The Alicia Patterson Foundation, researching the last decade of U.S. policy in the former Yugoslavia. Her multiyear investigation into arms embargo violations in Bosnia, including U.S. support for secret Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims, appeared in The New Republic and The APF Reporter. Beelman’s reporting has been honored by the National Headliner Club, the Associated Press Managing Editors, and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She is a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know and has been a judge for the Patterson fellowships as well as for international journalism awards. Beelman, a native of New Orleans, received a master’s degree in communications from the University of Florida (magna cum laude), and earned a bachelor’s degree, with high honors, in English-journalism at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Leah Rush
Director of State Projects
Leah Rush has worked with State Projects, compiling and analyzing numerous databases of state campaign finance, outside interest and lobbyist employer information, since she joined the Center in 1997 as a full-time intern. Upon completing her undergraduate degree in 1998, Rush returned to the Center to work on the award-winning “50States Project,” a two-year look at state legislators and their potential conflicts of interest. In addition to directing the Web site presentation, she guides the release of all state reports and data. Rush grew up in Puerto Rico and graduated cum laude with honors from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Barbara W. Schecter
Director of Development
Since 1976, Barbara Schecter has directed successful development programs in public and nonprofit arenas. In addition to running institutional advancement programs for several organizations, including the Antioch School of Law, the Clean Water Fund, and the Alliance for Redesigning Government, she has served as a fund-raising consultant for many fledgling and established groups. She holds a B.A. from Boston University and an M.A. from George Washington University.

Ann Pincus
Director of Communications and Outreach
Ann Pincus has over 30 years’ experience in public affairs, marketing, government relations and management. She served as director of research, first at the United States Information Agency, then the Department of State from 1993-2021, where she supervised public opinion polling and media research around the world for the U.S. government. She was vice president for communications at WETA TV-FM from 1987 to 1993; earlier she served as press secretary to Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, a publicist for National Public Radio, and director of information for the House Select Committee on Population. She began her career as a journalist, working for the Arkansas Gazette, Ridder Newspapers, the Village Voice and the New York Daily News, among other publications. She is a graduate of Vassar College.

Marianne (Lala) Camerer
Deputy Director of Global Access
Lala Camerer joined the Center in January 2023, having earlier piloted the Global Access methodology in her native country of South Africa, and previously consulted for the United Nations Global Programme Against Corruption, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Transparency International. During 1995-2022 she worked as a Senior Researcher in charge of anti-corruption programs at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. In 2022 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Yale University Law School as a Visiting Researcher. Since 1996 she has actively published in the field of crime prevention and corruption and regularly presents papers at international conferences. She holds two Masters degrees (in Comparative Social Research from Oxford University and Political Philosophy from the University of Stellenbosch) and is currently completing her PhD on anti-corruption mechanisms in South Africa. She is a co-founder of the Open Democracy Advice Center (ODAC) a non-profit monitoring the implementation of access to information and whistleblower protection laws in South Africa.

Teo Furtado
Deputy Managing Editor
Teo Furtado brings to the Center for Public Integrity a wide range of editorial and management experience, principally in magazines and on the Web. He was the San Francisco bureau chief of WebMD, a leading health and medical internet site, where he oversaw the work of more than 35 staff members, revamped the site’s approach to online content, and maintained partnerships with CNN, MSN, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, Reader’s Digest, WebTV and others. From 1995 to 1999, Furtado served as the editor of Hippocrates magazine, an award-winning publication covering health and medicine for physicians. While there, Furtado oversaw a significant magazine redesign and worked with some of the country’s leading science and health writers to produce stories that consistently won national awards for excellence. In the early 1990s, Furtado was associate editor of s magazine, where he assigned and edited pieces from such writers as Ann Beattie, Bob Sachochis, Mark Kram, and Stephen Harrigan. He earned his BA in English from Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy and English at the University of Texas in Austin. He was born in Portugal and is fluent in that language and also can read Spanish. He is a former Texas Amateur Chess Champion.

John Dunbar
Project Manager
John Dunbar came to the Center in 1999 from the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville where he was a reporter for four and one-half years. Since joining the Center, Dunbar has worked on the award-winning 50 States Project, the Center’s Enron and Harken Oil investigations and the California energy crisis. He is currently in charge of a three-year investigation of the telecommunications industry. At the Florida Times-Union he covered insurance, health care and business issues in the Florida Legislature, winning a Florida Medical Association award for a series on indigent care. He later became the newspaper’s chief investigative reporter and won a top statewide public service award for large newspapers on a series about the city’s troubled building and zoning division. Dunbar is a graduate of the University of South Florida in Tampa, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communications

Aubrey Bruggeman
Researcher
Aubrey Bruggeman joined the Center in October 2022 to provide research assistance to Charles Lewis and the Buying of the President 2024 project. Bruggeman is a recent, cum laude graduate from Georgetown University with a major in Government and a minor in English.

Renée Christopher
Special Assistant to the Executive Director
Prior to joining the Center, Renée Christopher worked in the Finance department and as a program associate on the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa Project at A.E.D. She has several years experience as a staff accountant and holds a B.S. in Finance from Loyola College. She also earned a B.A. in International Economics and Political Science with a regional specialization in Middle East Studies from the University of Maryland and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University with a graduate certificate in Emerging Markets from the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Ben Coates
Researcher
Ben Coates joined the Center in November 2022 to conduct research on presidential candidates for the Buying of the President 2024 project. He recently graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with an honors degree in History and a Political Science minor.

Bob Fagen
Researcher
After interning with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 1999 and 2020, Bob returned to the Center in 2022 to work on the Global Access project. He has been a consultant on anti-corruption issues for the OECD and the OAS, and has worked for the U.S. Senate, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Public Defender for the District of Columbia. Bob has a J.D. from American University, a Diplôme d’études juridiques européennes et internationales from Université Paris X – Nanterre, and a B.A. in International Affairs, Politics, and Spanish from Marquette University. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Bob has also lived in Paris and Madrid.

Neil Gordon
Research Associate
Prior to joining the Center in May 2020, Gordon was an associate at the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos in Baltimore, where he worked primarily on tobacco litigation. Gordon is currently working on the Center’s prosecutorial misconduct project. Neil graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Delaware in 1992 with a degree in political science. In 1995, he graduated cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law.

M. Asif Ismail
Production Editor
Asif Ismail worked as a copy editor at Khaleej Times in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and The Times of India in New Delhi. He first came to the Center as an intern in the summer of 2020 while completing his master’s degree in journalism at American University in Washington, D.C., and joined the staff after his graduation that December. Prior to coming to the United States, he earned a master of philosophy degree in Middle Eastern studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a master’s degree in English literature from Calicut University in Kerala, India.

Morgan Jindrich
Researcher
Morgan Jindrich is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – River Falls where she received a BA in political science. She was hired at the Center as primary researcher on the “Well Connected” project and has assisted in a number of other projects including “Water Barons” a project of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a PBS documentary on the telecommunications industry.

Javed Khan
Information Technology Manager
Javed manages and maintains the Center’s computer systems. He joined the Center in January 2020, and is currently working on his Management Information Systems degree.

Alex Knott
Writer
Alex Knott is co-ordinating the Center’s third investigative book about the presidential election, Buying of the President 2024. Alex comes to us from Congress Watch, where he worked as a investigative researcher on policy issues. Before joining the Center in February 2020, he also covered politics for the Journal Papers of the Washington metropolitian area and uncovered a scandal where a sheriff was deputizing his campaign contributors. Alex studied journalism at the University of Maryland.

Daniel Lathrop
Researcher
Daniel Lathrop is a former reporter at The Daytona Beach News-Journal and The Ames Tribune, Mid-Iowa’s Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. At those papers he covered major stories including the 2020 election and the 2020 recount.

Katy Lewis
James R. Soles Fellow
Katy Lewis is a 2021 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Delaware with an honors degree with distinction in political science and economics. She is the fourth James R. Soles Fellow at the Center.

Adam Mayle
James R. Soles Fellow
Adam Mayle is the recipient of the fifth Annual James R. Soles Fellowship at the Center. A native of Viola, Delaware, he graduated from the University of Delaware cum laude with a triple major in Economics, Russian Language and Literature, and International Relations with honors.

Robert Moore
Senior Associate
Robert Moore spent 12 years as an investigative and political reporter at newspapers in Pennsylvania and Delaware before joining the Center in July 1999. A former Investigative Reporters & Editors Minority Fellow, his professional awards include a number of national and regional prizes for investigative and government reporting. Robert’s work for the Wilmington (Del) News-Journal in the mid-1990s prompted Delaware Today Magazine to name Moore the state’s Best News Reporter in 1997. He was a co-writer of the Center’s award-winning Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States and is currently at work on the upcoming Buying of the President 2024.

Robert Morlino
Researcher
Robert Morlino graduated from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in 2022 where he served on the executive board of the Society of Professional Journalists chapter. He joined the Center in 2023 after interning at MSNBC’s world headquarters, where he covered national events related to the Middle East crisis. While studying journalism as an undergraduate at New York University he interned at the Village Voice newspaper, serving as a research and reporting assistant during the 2020 election cycle.

Han Nguyen
Web Developer
Han Nguyen joined the Center in November 2022 following six years in the government contracting, e-commerce, and I.T. consulting industries. He has held positions of web developer, network administrator, and software engineer for previous employers. Han graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Sugesh Panicker
Development Assistant
Sugesh Panicker comes to the Center with years of experience as a Technical Specialist with Aether Systems and also as a Conference Director with Rail-to-Trails Conservancy. As a Technical Specialist, he programmed and tested new and emerging wireless technology products. As a Conference Director, he organized a successful 1,100 delegate Trails and Greenways Conference in June 1999. Sugesh has also worked on numerous corporate and private fundraising campaigns.

Laura Peterson
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Writer
Before joining the staff of ICIJ, Laura Peterson was a Pew Fellow in International Journalism, sponsored by Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Peterson reported on civil society and media from Istanbul, Turkey, for publications including The Christian Science Monitor and American Journalism Review. Prior to that, Peterson worked in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as an editor and was also a correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and Cairo Times. Peterson is from San Francisco, where she spent four years covering local news after receiving degrees in anthropology and journalism from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Aron Pilhofer
Database Editor
Aron Pilhofer came to the Center after a year on the national training staff of Investigative Reporters and Editors (www.ire.org) and serving as director of IRE’s Campaign Finance Information Center. During his time with IRE, he trained hundreds of print and broadcast reporters in newsrooms across the country in the art and science of investigative reporting. Prior to joining IRE, he was a project reporter at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. He also spent four years covering politics and state government in New Jersey for Gannett newspapers.

Daniel Politi
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Editorial Assistant
Daniel Politi started at the Center as a summer intern in 2021 and became ICIJ’s Editorial Assistant while in his last year of university. After graduating magna cum laude with a dual degree in international relations and journalism at American University in Washington, D.C., he joined the Center full time. Politi is the former editorial page editor for The Eagle, American University’s student newspaper, and has interned for numerous organizations dealing with public policy and journalism, including the Brookings Institution, the Bretton-Woods Committee, and the Student Press Law Center, all in the Washington, D.C., area, as well as with the Buenos Aires Herald. Originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, Politi has lived in Peru, Mexico, Kenya and Argentina.

Regina Russell
Office Assistant and Executive Assistant to the Executive Director
Regina Russell studied business management at Roanoke Chowan Community College and George Washington University. She is completing her bachelor’s degree at Trinity College.

Peter Newbatt Smith
Research Editor
Before coming to the Center, Peter Smith was employed as a law clerk at the firm of Gaffney & Schember, P.C., in Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. in medieval European history from Harvard University and his J.D. from American University.

Andre Verlöy
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Associate Director
André Verlöy joined the Center as an intern with the ICIJ project in summer 2020 while completing his master’s degree in journalism and public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C., and joined the staff after graduation. A native of Norway, he has worked on ICIJ projects ranging from international arms traffickers and U.S. military involvement in Latin America to the privatization of water. He worked as a managing editor for the only nationally distributed college news program while in graduate school and, prior to that, spent three years as an assignment editor at NorthWest Cable News in Seattle, a 24-hour news channel covering the Pacific Northwest. Verlöy received his undergraduate degree from The University of Montana and was awarded a regional Emmy for his work as documentary producer.

Jonathan Werve
Researcher
Jonathan Werve started at the Center as an intern for ICIJ, and is currently working with the Global Access project, tracking corruption and accountability in governments worldwide. Prior to working on Global Access, Werve was a researcher for Rough Guides in Stockholm, and reported on farmers’ movements in Thailand for CommonDreams.org. Werve studied politics, development and journalism at George Washington University and Khon Kaen University before receiving a B.A. from Colorado College.

Bob Williams
Senior Writer
Bob Williams came to the Center from The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., where he covered everything from hurricanes to hog waste. He was part of a team that won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on the hog industry in North Carolina. He also led the paper’s coverage of Hurricane Floyd, which was a Pulitzer finalist for breaking news in 1999. He has won numerous state journalism awards and has conducted several seminars at the national conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. Prior to joining The News & Observer, he worked for Crain’s Communications as a Washington correspondent and operated his own business, publishing real estate newsletters. He was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in 2021, and was a member of the first class of ethics fellows at the Poynter Institute, also in 2021. Williams is a graduate of Radford University in Virginia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

Brooke Williams
Researcher
Brooke Williams graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in December 2021. While attending college, she worked as a cops and courts reporter and a sports reporter for the Columbia Missourian, a morning newspaper. From September to December 2021, she was the Washington DC correspondent for the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper, and the Topeka Capital-Journal, a Kansas newspaper. She is currently working on the Center’s prosecutorial misconduct project.

Derek Willis
Writer / Data Specialist
Derek Willis joined the Center in February 2023 after spending five years at Congressional Quarterly, where he covered the House of Representatives, congressional elections and campaign finance issues and maintained CQ’s campaign finance data. He also compiled CQ’s annual vote studies and contributed material to several books, including editions of Politics in America. Previously, he was a reporter at the Palm Beach Post covering local government and working on computer-assisted reporting projects. A native of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Willis graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in rhetoric and attended graduate school at the University of Florida.

Funders

Support for the Center for Public Integrity is provided by contributions from individuals, foundations, the sale of publications and editorial consulting with news organizations. The Center, which does not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions or governments, gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the following individuals and foundations that contributed $500 or more in 2022.

*Matching gift

Opportunities

Employment Opportunities

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, non-partisan, tax-exempt organization, which The New Yorker has referred to as “a journalistic utopia”. Currently, the Center has no open position.

Internship Opportunities

Understanding How Washington Works
An Internship in Investigative Journalism

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, was founded in 1989 by Charles Lewis following a successful 11-year career in journalism and network television news. The Center has released scores of investigative reports about public service, government accountability, and ethics related issues including the much-lauded books The Buying of the Congress and The Buying of the President 2020.

A motivating factor for our internship program is to make a significant and positive impact on the decline in the quality of investigative journalism around the country. A major portion of the Center’s energy is devoted to working with the next generation of investigative reporters.

We seek interns interested in being introduced to the “nuts and bolts” of investigative journalism: everything from on and off-the-record interviews with government officials, academics, economists, activists, whistleblowers, and ordinary Americans to electronic journalism to poring through government reports, records, and statistics. Interns will learn how to use computer databases and sources of information only available in the nation’s capital. Under the supervision of investigative journalists at the Center, they will focus on a broad range of issues relating to the public interest. Their assignments will take them to the Library of Congress, Federal Election Commission, Security and Exchange Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Trade Commission, Senate and House, and many other locations.

Contact:
Regina Russell
Phone: 202-466-1300
E-mail: internships@publicintegrity.org

Journalistic Ethics

The Center for Public Integrity subscribes to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional journalists, reprinted here in full:

Preamble

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.

Seek Truth and Report It

Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

Journalists should:

Minimize Harm

Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.

Journalists should:

Act Independently

Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.

Journalists should:

Be Accountable

Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

Journalists should:

IRS Compliance

In compliance with IRS regulations, the Center has made copies of its exemption application and annual returns for the past three years available for download and review. You must have Adobe Acrobat to view and print the documents.

Form 1023 (exemption application)

Form 990 (annual returns)

Annual Report

Become a Member

Four Easy Ways to Become a Member:

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    Go to the Center Store, select a membership option and proceed to pay online with your credit card using our secure online system.
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    Print out the order form, fill in all relevant information and mail, complete with payment, to the address given below. Checks should be made payable to the Center for Public Integrity.
  4. By Phone:
    Call Regina Russell at (202) 466-1300 to process your order.

All membership dues and contributions to the Center are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law!

Membership Options:

  1. Limited-time Membership Offer:
    Limited-time Membership Offer: $100 Limited-time Membership includes all the benefits of Basic Membership and copies of our two latest books titled Making a Killing: The Business of War and The Water Barons. This offer is valid for both new and renewing Center members.
  2. Basic Membership:
    Join the Center for Public Integrity at the $35 level and enjoy members’ benefits including a one-year subscription to the Center’s award-winning, investigative newsletter, The Public i.
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    We need your continued financial support to keep on investigating, muckraking, prodding, and serving as the public’s “eyes and ears” inside the Beltway and far beyond. Please consider giving a special membership gift at this time of $50, $100, $250 or more.

Bequests:

Your bequest to the Center for Public Integrity will help us continue our efforts to provide the products of our investigations to the American public. For information about leaving a contribution to the Center in your will, contact the Director of Development at bschect@publicintegrity.org.

Questions?

Contact us with your questions at:
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The Public i Newsletter

The Public i is the Center for Public Integrity’s award-winning newsletter. Launched in 1994, it’s been the venue for some of the Center’s biggest scoops, including “Fat Cat Hotel,” the story that first exposed how wealthy Democratic donors and fund-raisers were being rewarded with overnight stays in the White House as guests of President and Mrs. Clinton. That issue of The Public i, published in August 1996, won the “Public Service in Newsletter Journalism” award from the Society of Professional Journalists “in recognition of distinguished service to the American people and the profession of journalism through outstanding accomplishment during the year of 1996.”

May 2022 Issue: (PDF Format 210 KB)

Center Releases Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States
$570 Million Spent on Lobbying in the States in 2020
For Banks, a Payday in the Statehouse
Since Our Last Newsletter

Feb. 2022 Issue: (PDF Format 274 KB)

White House Pushed Pro-Tobacco Rule in Anti-Terrorism Bill
HUD Office Mismanages Funds
Racicot will Continue Lobbying while Serving as RNC Chair

Dec. 2021 Issue: (PDF Format 274 KB)

Enron’s Top Brass Were Big Donors
Enron: A Financial and Political Scandal (Commentary)
Africa’s ‘Merchant of Death’ Sold Arms to The Taliban

Nov. 2021 Issue: (PDF Format 381 KB)

Osama bin Laden: How U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist
U.S. role in Gulf War
U.S. Embassy Bombings

Sept. 2021 Issue: (PDF Format 209 KB)

Investigation Looked at Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil
CIA Gave at Least $10 Million to Ex-Spymaster

Jun.2021 Issue: (PDF Format 239 KB)

The Bush Team
A Dozen Summer Interns
Politics and Human Cloning

Apr. 2021 Issue: (PDF Format 634 KB)

Most Surprising Finding: Feds’ Non-response to Tax Cheats
A Special Offer for new and Renewing Members

Feb. 2021 Issue: (PDF Format 266 KB)

Young Pilots Riskier Than the Over-60s Who are Turned Away
Legislators’ Ties to Timber Industry
Message to Our Members

Dec. 2020 Issue: (PDF Format 224 KB)

Attack Linked to U.S. Bomb
U.K. May Probe Cigarette Smuggling
Philip Morris Accused of Smuggling
Membership message

Oct. 2020 Issue: (PDF Format 260 KB)

Anti-Hillary Groups Drawn to New York
Little Money for Black Candidates
Membership message

April 2020 Issue: (PDF Format 749 KB)

Overnight Guests at Governor’s Mansion Added $2.2 Million to Bush Campaign
Vice President’s Quarters Draws Fund-Raisers Bucks
Major Tobacco Mutlinational Implicated In Cigarette Smuggling, Tax Evasion, Documents Show
Charles Lewis Commentary: Denial and Hypocrisy
Celebrity Quiz
Membership message

Opposition Research (PDF format 146 KB), August 1999
The pen isn’t the only communications tool that’s mightier than the sword. There’s also the video camera, which in the right hands can produce some very special effects- for instance, making a mountain of trash disappear.

Poison Politics (PDF format 176 KB), June 1999
Since Toxic Deception was first published in 1997, the EPA claims to have mended many of the holes in the tattered safety net for toxic chemicals. But as the new edition of the book shows, appearances can be deceiving.

Reporting Across Borders (PDF format 188 KB), March 1999
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the first systematic effort ever to bring the world’s leading investigative reporters together in a collaborative—and largely electronic—network.

Not-So-Full Disclosure (PDF format 163 KB), February 1999
Financial-disclosure rules are the first line of defense against lawmakers using their positions of public trust for private gain. Taken together, however, the rules that apply to state legislators may be more loophole than law.

The Death of Conscience (PDF format 166 KB), October 1998
The public perception today is that most lawmakers on Capitol Hill won’t risk their careers for anything. Why? A tale of two former Senators speaks volumes about what’s wrong in Washington these days.

In Your Backyard (PDF format 180 KB), August 1998
Americans apply about 74 million pounds of pesticides a year to everything from lawns and playgrounds to golf courses and parks. Here’s how the industry that manufactures them keeps Congress—and the EPA—on its side.

Errant Arcs (PDF format 183 KB), May 1998
In 1991, the National Transportation Safety Board urged the Federal Aviation Administration to inspect the wiring on Boeing 737s. The FAA didn’t listen—until events eight years later forced it to act.

Anything Goes? (PDF format 141 KB), April 1998
What’s stopping lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly from proposing and voting on measures that could boost their own incomes? Nothing, the Center’s investigation shows.

The Invisible Threat (PDF format 134 KB), August 1997
An excerpt from the Center’s widely acclaimed book,Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health.

The Big Squeeze (PDF format 87 KB), March 1997
An excerpt from the Center’s report,Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act, an in-depth investigation of the influences that have shaped U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Presidential Frequent Fliers (PDF format 80 KB), December 1996
Bill Clinton and Bob Dole hit the air running in the 1996 campaign, but both of them flew on the cheap, thanks to huge - and mostly hidden - subsidies from corporate America and the nation’s taxpayers.

Limited Partners (PDF format 91 KB), October 1996
Elizabeth and Robert Dole’s investment in a tax shelter raises a series of provocative questions, especially for a presidential candidate who has made tax fairness and integrity the centerpieces of his campaign.

Fat Cat Hotel (PDF format 132 KB), August 1996
Where to stay in the nation’s capital? If you’re one of the Democratic Party’s big donors or fund-raisers, your hotel of choice isn’t the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton. It’s the White House.

Playing Political Roulette (PDF format 115 KB), June 1996
The gambling industry has moved quickly to accumulate influence and clout in national politics. In this year’s presidential race, it’s betting the house.

Campaign 96: The Hidden Persuaders (PDF format 88 KB), February 1996
Candidates on the Washington Culture: Lamar Alexander, Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Phil Gramm, Bill Clinton, and Richard Lugar.

Unanswered Questions the Presidential Candidates Don’t Want You to Ask. (PDF format 108 KB), January 1995
1995 Contributions to presidential candidates from Bill Clinton, Lamar Alexander, Patrick Buchanan, and Bob Dole, their “Top Ten Career Patrons”.

Steve Forbes and the Flat Tax (PDF format 95 KB), December 1995
With the assistance of an accounting firm that made estimates based on available public financial disclosure records, the Center revealed that millionaire publisher Steve Forbes’s key campaign issue, advocacy of a “flat tax,” would have cut his own annual tax liability in half.

Rocky Mountain High-Flier (PDF format 100 KB), June 1995
A look into the foreign trade missions sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce and led by Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown.

Contract with an American (PDF format 95 KB), March 1995
A look into Marianne Gingrich’s position with the Israel Export Development Company, Ltd.

Lobbying (PDF format 132 KB), July 1994

The Fastest Growing Health Care Industry
A word from Charles Lewis, “Where’s the Outrage?”
An interview with Bill Kovach
Inside the Beltway: Summer Bummer
Inside America: Scary Water
Study Update: Rainy Day II
Gold Rush for Former Senator.

Public Trust, Private Influence (PDF format 240 KB)

November 1994 In this issue
A word from Charles Lewis on arrogance
James MacGregor Burns on leadership
Inside the Beltway-New Campaign Fund Uses!
Dread Disease; Old Nuke and New Nuke Concerns
A Defense Fund Tax Primer
Cuba Si! Cuba No!

Contact Us

The Center for Public Integrity
910 17th Street, NW, Seventh Floor
Washington, DC 20206

Phone: 202-466-1300
Fax: 202-466-1101

The Public i

June 4, 2023




Home >

Behind Closed Doors: Top Broadcasters Met 71 Times With FCC Officials
(WASHINGTON, May 29, 2023) The nation’s top broadcasters have met behind closed doors with Federal Communications Commission officials more than 70 times to discuss a sweeping set of proposals to relax media ownership rules, the Center for Public Integrity has found. The private sessions included dozens of meetings between broadcasters and the agency’s five commissioners and their top advisors. A June 2 vote is scheduled on the controversial proposals, which critics fear will touch off a major new round of media consolidation. FCC officials held five private sessions with Consumers Union and the Media Access Project, the two major consumer groups working on the issue, since the proposals first surfaced eight months ago. (Updated May 30, 2023)

Well Connected: FCC and Industry Maintain Cozy Relationship on Many Levels
(WASHINGTON, May 22, 2023) – The three largest local phone companies control 83 percent of home telephone lines. The top two long distance carriers control 67 percent of that market. The four biggest cellular phone companies have 64 percent of the wireless market. The five largest cable companies pipe programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers nationwide. Those findings come from the Center for Public Integrity’s unprecedented examination of the telecommunications industry, the centerpiece of which is a first-of-its-kind, 65,000 record, searchable database containing ownership information on virtually every radio station, television station, cable television system and telephone company in America. For the full report and database visit the Well Connected Web site.

Cigarette Company Documents Outline Strategy to Derail Global Tobacco Treaty
(WASHINGTON, May 16, 2023) – With the first global treaty to regulate tobacco set to be debated next week, newly released internal company records reveal a key tobacco industry player’s sophisticated campaign against the proposed accord.

Hired Guns
Lobbyists spend loads of money to influence legislators—and in many states, with too little scrutiny
(WASHINGTON, May 15, 2023) – While lobbyists and their employers in 39 states spent more than $715 million wining, dining and generally influencing state lawmakers in 2022, many details about how those dollars were spent remain hidden from public view, according to a comprehensive analysis released today by the Center for Public Integrity. More than half the states received a failing grade for their registration and spending disclosure requirements filed by legislative lobbyists.

Kerry Carries Water for Top Donor
(WASHINGTON, May 7, 2023) – Democratic presidential hopeful John F. Kerry, whose largest campaign contributor lobbies on behalf of telecom interests, pushed the legislative priorities of its clients in the wireless telecommunications industry on several occasions, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign, lobbying and congressional records has found. The Massachusetts Senator has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of bills favorable to the industry and has written letters to government agencies on behalf of the clientele of his largest donor.
News Release
Center for Public Integrity Wins Two Sigma Delta Chi Awards
(WASHINGTON, April 28, 2023) – The Center for Public Integrity won two 2022 Sigma Delta Chi awards given by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

FCC Makes New Rules to Reform Troubled Program
(WASHINGTON, April 24, 2023) – The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules aimed at cleaning up financial fraud and abuse within a multi-billion-dollar program that helps wire schools and libraries to the Internet. A January 2023 Center for Public Integrity report chronicled widespread fraud and a lack of proper government oversight of the FCC’s schools and libraries program, also known as E-Rate.

Privatizing Water: What the European Commission Doesn’t Want You to Know
(WASHINGTON, April 7, 2023) – Leaked documents reveal that the European Union has asked 72 countries to open up their markets to private water companies. An exchange of e-mail reveals that these requests came after a period of intense cooperation and consultation between water companies and trade representatives of the European Commission, which is the executive body of the European Union, leading up to the most recent round of World Trade Organization negotiations designed to open up world markets for trade in services.

The Clinton Top 100: Where Are They Now?
(WASHINGTON, March 31, 2023) – Two years after they left the federal government and one year after a ban that limited their lobbying activities expired, more than half of the top one hundred Clinton White House officials went on to represent, work for or advise businesses and entities in areas they regulated while they were in office, a Center for Public Integrity survey has found.

Advisors of Influence: Nine Members of the Defense Policy Board Have Ties to Defense Contractors
(WASHINGTON, March 28, 2023) Richard Perle, who resigned as chairman of a Pentagon advisory group after questions were raised about his work for companies with business before the Defense Dept., is not the only member of the group with potential conflicts of interest. Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2021 and 2022. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors.
News Release
Center for Public Integrity Wins IRE Book Award
(WASHINGTON, March 20, 2023) – The Center for Public Integrity has won the Investigative Reporters and Editors national book award for 2022, for Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States, published by Public Integrity Books.

Gore Spent Recount Money in Primary States Before Bowing Out
(WASHINGTON, Mar. 12, 2023) – As former Vice President Al Gore mulled a White House run late last year, he used a campaign finance loophole to send $100,000 he raised two years ago for the Florida recount to bolster his position in the first two states where presidential candidates test their mettle, the Center for Public Integrity reports.

The FCC’s rapidly revolving door
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2023) – A former Federal Communications Commission bureau chief who played an integral role in shaping policies governing local telephone competition is now a senior vice president for federal regulatory strategy for SBC Communications, helping the telecom giant reshape the rules she helped draft. Dorothy Attwood, former chief of the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, quit the agency on Sept. 15 of last year and began work at SBC Nov. 1, the Center reports.

The Big Pong Down Under
(ADELAIDE, Australia, Feb. 14, 2023) – Fifteen months after Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to a private consortium controlled by Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, which became known as “the big pong.” Read more in the final installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Hard Water: The Uphill Campaign to Privatize Canada’s Waterworks
(HAMILTON, Canada, Feb. 13, 2023) – Hamilton was the first privatized large water utility in Canada, a country where waterworks have been overwhelmingly a public affair – and where most people like it that way. The Hamilton experience was supposed to demonstrate an alternative, free-market model, supposed to change public opinion. It has, but not as expected. Read more in the ninth installment of “The Water Barons.”
Commentary
Even in Wartime, Stealth and Democracy Do Not Mix
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2023) – With troops amassing on the border of Iraq, we learn that for months the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft has been secretly drafting the Domestic Security Act of 2023, another tectonic shift in the historic constitutional balance between security and liberty. Was the Bush Administration waiting for the bombs bursting in Baghdad to spring this latest, urgent, national security legislation on the American people and Congress, another drive-by mooting of our customary democratic discourse and deliberative processes? Given recent events, it is certainly not an unfair question to ask, writes Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity.

Low Rates, Needed Repairs Lure ‘Big Water’ to Uncle Sam’s Plumbing
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2023) – Foreign private companies are gearing up to control a multibillion-dollar market to upgrade the nation’s aging water system, after spending millions of dollars over the last six years to sway congressional votes on privatization laws. Americans have the safest and cheapest public water systems in the world. But, as foreign companies flex their financial muscle, America’s drinking water may not be so cheap or public for long. Read more in the eighth installment of ICIJ’s global water series, “The Water Barons.”

A Tale of Two Cities
(BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Feb. 11, 2023) – Coastal Cartagena was the first of about 50 cities and towns to privatize its water in Colombia. The capital Bogotá bucked the privatization trend, refused World Bank money and transformed its public utility into the most successful in Colombia. Read more in the seventh installment of ICIJ’s series on global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Water and Politics in the Fall of Suharto
(JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 10, 2023) – The privatization of Jakarta’s water is the story of powerful multinationals that deftly used the World Bank and a compliant dictatorship to grab control of a major city’s waterworks. Read more in the sixth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2023) – The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act that will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2023, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text. The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2023, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol.

Loaves, Fishes and Dirty Dishes: Manila’s Privatized Water Can’t Handle the Pressure
(MANILA, Philippines, Feb. 7, 2023) – Politically connected families and private companies split Manila in two to share turf. At first, the two companies brought miracles by bringing running water to thousands of poor people who never had it. Now the miracle has faded as one company bails out, leaving behind enormous debts. Read more in the fifth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

The ‘Aguas’ Tango: Cashing In On Buenos Aires’ Privatization
(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Feb. 6, 2023) – Global water giants partnered to run a water system in the Argentine capital that the World Bank touted as a model of privatization. Investors extracted millions in profits. But now the model is crumbling under the weight of mounting costs. Read more in the fourth installment of “The Water Barons.”

Metered to Death: How a Water Experiment Caused Riots and a Cholera Epidemic
(JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Feb. 5, 2023) – The biggest problem in this country ravaged by AIDS, tuberculosis and malnourishment, is water. Few can afford it. But with World Bank blessing, the government is trying to end water subsidies, forcing millions of South Africans to seek their water from polluted rivers and lakes. The result: one of the largest outbreaks of cholera. Read more in the third installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Water and Power: The French Connection
(PARIS, Feb. 4, 2023) – France could be described as the birthplace of modern water privatization. Private companies have run French waterworks to one degree or another since the Napoleonic era. But its top water companies have been rocked by scandals and allegations of influence-peddling. Read more in the second installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

The Water Barons: A Handful of Corporations Seek to Privatize the World’s Water
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2023) – The privatization of public water systems around the world, driven by a handful of European corporations and the World Bank, is dramatically increasing despite sometimes tragic results, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. The report, by the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, shows that the world’s three largest private water utility companies have since 1990 expanded into nearly every region of the world, raising concerns that a few private companies could soon control a large chunk of the world’s most vital resource.

It’s a Millionaires’ Race: New Financial Disclosure Database Details Assets of 2024 Presidential Candidates
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2023) – Of the eight men who have declared their interest in running for President in 2024, at least six are multi-millionaires, led by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), who, if elected, would be the richest president in more than a century. The Center for Public Integrity launches its “The Buying of the President 2024” website (www.bop2024.org), which provides an online warehouse of nearly 202 documents detailing the financial interests of major party candidates running in the 2024 presidential election. The website also includes candidate biographies, a searchable database based on their personal financial disclosure forms, for those running for the White House. The site is part of the Center’s ongoing coverage of presidential elections, which began with The Buying of the President in 1996 and The Buying of the President 2020, and will continue in the Center’s forthcoming book, The Buying of the President 2024.

Congressmen Call for Probe of Fraud-Plagued Phone Fund for Schools, Libraries
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 30) – Two of the most powerful members of Congress who oversee telecommunications issues have started investigating financial shenanigans within the government’s controversial E-Rate fund, which provides hefty discounts to help connect schools and libraries to the Internet. The probes were announced following the release of a Center for Public Integrity report chronicling fraud and lax government oversight of the $2.25 billion program.
Commentary
Relaxing Media Ownership Rules Conflicts with the Public’s Right to Know
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 22) – On Jan. 16, 2023, Charles Lewis, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, addressed the Forum on Media Ownership at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law in New York City. Lewis prepared remarks for the event which, because of the time constraints, he had to summarize. We reprint his full prepared remarks here.

Phone fund for schools, libraries riddled with fraud
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2023) – A government program that helps schools and libraries connect to the Internet is woefully short on oversight and riddled with fraud, the Center for Public Integrity has learned. The $2.25 billion E-Rate fund, paid for by what is essentially a tax on the telephone bills of virtually all Americans, has problems “almost everywhere we looked,” according to a government auditor. The report is the first in the Center’s ongoing, unprecedented look at the telecommunications industry, which, over the next three years, will examine the corporations that control the telecommunications infrastructure and the public officials charged with overseeing the industry.

A Most Favored Corporation: Enron Prevailed in Federal, State Lobbying Efforts 49 Times
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 6, 2023) Enron Corp., whose financial collapse became a political scandal a little more than a year ago, ran a formidable lobbying machine in Washington and state capitals. The company gained favorable treatment from Congress, federal and state governments and various regulatory agencies on no fewer than 49 occasions from the late 1980s to the company’s bankruptcy in December 2021, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows.

527s / Issue Ad Watch

Issue Ad Watch 2020 is a new regular feature exposing issue advocacy groups, their true agendas and secret donors. The Center will be reporting on groups conducting issue ad campaigns throughout the election cycle to increase media and voter knowledge of these often-times shadowy groups and their interests.

Issue Ad Watch Reports

The ‘Black Hole’ Groups
An election overview and final profiles of interest groups campaigning in 2020.
(last updated February 21, 2021)

Hired Hands Grab
Chance to Skirt
‘527’ Disclosure Law
(Washington, Nov. 1) ‘Stealth’ groups have circumvented the intent of the new ‘527’ disclosure law by providing incorrect or misleading information on the required IRS form or by using the services of a ‘political treasurer,’ a Public i examination has found.

Montana a Target
For Out-of-State
Campaign Cash
(Washington, Oct. 25) With the U.S. Senate majority up for grabs, would-be voters in Montana’s U.S. Senate race have been inundated by ads from outside groups spending millions.

Here Are the Groups Targeted
By ‘No-Soft-Money’ Pledge
In New York Race
(Washington, Oct. 3) New York’s U.S. Senate candidates, Rick Lazio and Hillary Rodham Clinton, have agreed to discourage outside interest groups from airing issue advocacy ads during the contest. The Center profiles 23 groups directly named by the pledge or by either candidate as seeking to affect the outcome of the election.

Legal Challenge
Seeks to Bring Down
New Campaign Finance Law
(Washington, September 5) A conservative group in Alabama has filed the first court challenge to recently passed campaign finance legislation that aims to force certain tax-exempt political groups to disclose their donors and expenditures.

IRS Seeks to Clarify
New Campaign Finance Disclosure Law
(Washington, August 17) A campaign finance law intended to resolve questions about unregulated soft money makes headway and asks for assistance in clarifying the law after its first filings were made public.

Undisclosed Soft Money to Pay for GOP Perks; 21 on Hill Seek Change
(Washington, July 28) At the Republican convention, cars and drivers will be provided for all attending Republican members of Congress, along with 24-hour concierge service, according to news reports . The perks would be paid for by “soft-money’ contributions to a leadership political action committee that does not plan to disclose its donors or how its money is spent.

It’s the kind of secrecy that 21 members of Congress want to change.

Letter to IRS Urges Congressional Intent to force disclosure
(Washington, July 12) Soft money groups are looking for ways around a recent campaign finance legislation designed to close a specific loophole. A letter dated July 25 from Senators Joseph Leiberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., urges the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service to interpret a new campaign finance law according to the Congressional intent.

Interests Behind 527 Groups
Seeking Ways Around New Law
(Washington, July 12) Though the law forcing certain tax-exempt political groups to disclose their donors and expenditures is just days old, some of the interests behind the groups are already seeking ways around it.

Congress Passes Campaign Finance Reform
(Washington, June 29) With a 92-6 Senate vote, Congress has passed the first campaign finance reform legislation in 21 years. The Full and Fair Campaign Finance Disclosure Act of 2020, introduced in the Senate by longtime campaign-reform advocate John McCain, R-Ariz., was approved by the Senate June 29 after clearing the House shortly after midnight on June 28.

Congress Sifts Competing Measures
On Campaign Finance Reform
(Washington, June 28) Earlier this month, the Senate passed an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would force currently invisible political groups to disclose their identities and their sources of funding. Shortly after midnight on June 28, the House passed similar legislation, but Congress hasn’t settled the issue. Here is a comparison of the most promising legislation.

Joint Fund-Raising Committees
One-Stop Shopping for Donors
(Washington, June 22) Political parties are turning to raising money jointly with candidates for Congress in greater numbers than ever this year – and the questionable practice has raised more than $13 million so far this election cycle.

N.J. Candidates Discover ‘527’ Cash Cow
(Washington, June 22) Two Republican candidates for the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race have set up 527 groups a full year before the party primary.

The heat is on
(Washington, May 30) New York Republicans might be nominating Rep. Rick Lazio instead of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for the U.S. Senate, but one thing remains the same: Outside interest groups don’t want Hillary Rodham Clinton elected.

Follow Suit Against GOP’s Tom DeLay, Highlighting Campaign-Funding Loophole
When the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed suit against House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on May 3, the committee raised public awareness of a tax-law loophole that allows a group to influence elections without having to report its existence to the Federal Election Commission or the Internal Revenue Service.

Group to Spend $10 Million Against Candidates Not Hawkish On Free Market
(Washington, 17 April) A group of Wall Street investors, media executives and fiscal policy experts have created a new political group that intends to spend $10 million to oust Republican and Democratic members of Congress who don’t push free-market policies.

Loophole Allows Donors to Give Without Leaving a Trace
(Washington, 30 March) The same day that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore unveiled his campaign finance reform proposal, an organization with ties to former California Gov. Pete Wilson launched a national attack on Gore by exploiting a tax-law loophole that allows a group to influence elections without having to report its existence to the Federal Election Commission or the Internal Revenue Service.

The Business of War

Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often, these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests, whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions have prolonged the conflicts.

A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has also found that a handful of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this war commerce – a growth industry whose bottom line never takes into account the lives it destroys.

Read more on this subject in ICIJ’s 11-part series, “Making a Killing: The Business of War.”

ARchives

2022 Archives

Frist for the Mill? Senate Majority Leader Aspirant Has Race-Related Controversy in His Past
(WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2022) – The 1994 campaign of Republican Senator Bill Frist, the frontrunner for the Senate Majority Leader position, was marked by charges of insensitivity to racial issues in a state where roughly 16 percent of the population is black. Frist enraged black clergy and others with allegedly racist remarks made during his campaign against incumbent Sen. Jim Sasser.

Outsourcing Big Brother: Office of Total Information Awareness Relies on Private Sector to Track Americans
(WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2022) – The Total Information Awareness System, the controversial Pentagon research program that aims to gather and analyze a vast array of information on Americans, has hired at least eight private companies to work on the effort. Some of the programs that are part of TIA predate the Sept. 11, 2021, terrorist attacks. Since 1997, those companies have won contracts from the Defense Department agency that oversees the program worth $88 million, the Center for Public Integrity has learned.

Commentary
Total Information Awareness: A Chance Encounter Raises Questions
(WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2022) – It happened late on a Friday night, at my third airport of the day. On American Airlines Flight 3028 from St. Louis, directly in the row ahead of me, a man arose and I couldn’t help but notice what he was wearing. Across the shoulders of his blue shirt were the following words: “Total Information Awareness.” Was this guy a Poindexter aide? Was I looking at the face of Big Brother? Or at least one of the faces? Read more from executive director Charles Lewis.

News Release
Series on Immigrant Labor Abuses Wins Investigative Prize
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022) – A five-part series by Newsday reporter Thomas Maier documenting abuses suffered by immigrants in American workplaces has won the 2022 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

Series on Immigrant Labor Abuses Wins Investigative Prize
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022) – A five-part series by Newsday reporter Thomas Maier documenting abuses suffered by immigrants in American workplaces has won the 2022 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

Club 100: Over 100 Americans Gave More Than $100,000 to State Political Parties
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022) – The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act changed the rules for big money at the national level, but it does little to take the big money or big donors out of state and local politics. The Center identifies those individuals who donated $100,000 or more during the 1999-2020 election cycle, the most recent election for which complete data from every state is available.

Contributors of $100,000 or more to State Party Organizations in the 2020 Election Cycle

The Merchant of Death
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2022) – Victor Bout’s air cargo companies shipped vegetables and crayfish from South Africa to Europe, transported United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan to East Timor, and reportedly assisted the logistics of Operation Restore Hope, the U.S.-led military famine relief effort in Somalia in 1993. “That was the staple stuff,” a former associate, said. “The dodgy flights were all extras.” Those “dodgy flights” included shipping arms that fueled Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, and earned Bout his reputation as the “merchant of death.” Read more in the 11th and final part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2022) – It was not until weeks after Italian police arrested Leonid Minin in a Milan hotel room on charges of cocaine possession that they learned that the man with the expensive drug habit was under investigation in five countries for various crimes. It would take even longer to piece together the documents that he carried with him, papers that would tell the story of his illegal arms trading, including selling weapons to the most brutal of Africa’s rebel insurgencies, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. Read more in the tenth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

The Field Marshal
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2022) – The long and storied career of Jacques Monsieur, a Belgian nicknamed “the field marshal” who has been active in arms trading since the 1980s, illustrates that often arms dealers who are ostensibly profit-seeking freelancers actually serve the interests of Western intelligence services and corporate elites. They violate U.N. arms embargoes with the implicit – sometimes explicit – approval of government officials, and attempt to tip the balance in armed conflicts for the benefit of business interests. Read the ninth part of “Making a Killing: The Business of War.”

The Influence Peddlers
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2022) – Arcadi Gaydamak claims to be among the five richest men in Israel, which would put him in the billionaire category. He owes this vast fortune, he said, to shrewd speculation on the Russian stock market, particularly oil stocks, and not to the profits of war. Gaydamak insists he was never an arms dealer, rather a “financier of deals.” The financier, who seldom signs anything and operates through labyrinthine shell companies, epitomizes the business of war in the post-Cold War era: an entrepreneur with global ties to arms smuggling, resource exploitation and private military companies. Read the eighth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

The Adventure Capitalist
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2022) – Niko Shefer leaned forward and explained the competitive advantage small entrepreneurs enjoy over corporate multinationals when doing business in war-ravaged countries like Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I move with cash. I can buy the president a Mercedes 600. How can a normal company justify that? How do they explain that to the shareholders? I do not need board meetings. I am the board,” said Shefer, one of a new breed of adventurers and opportunists who have the acumen and the ruthlessness to profit from Africa’s war zones. Read more in the seventh part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Conflict Diamonds are Forever
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2022) – The sudden renaissance of diamond mining and trading around Kimberley, South Africa – the birthplace of that nation’s diamond industry – has fed rumors in the close-knit international diamond community that the area has become a major laundering center for Africa’s “conflict diamonds” – stones from areas of Africa wracked by civil war, where combatants use their control of the mines to fund arms purchases for their fight. Poor controls in the international diamond industry are undercutting attempts to clamp down on the trade in conflict diamonds that allegedly fund terrorist organizations. Read the sixth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

The Curious Bonds of Oil Diplomacy
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2022) – In April 2021, a representative from MPRI – a Viriginia-based private military company – met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea, an African nation with a population of less than 5 million, was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Yet the Kuwait of Africa is plagued by corruption, poverty, and a regime that regularly engages in human rights abuses. Read the fifth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Greasing the Skids of Corruption
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2022) – On July 15, 2020, the Marathon Oil Company sent $13.7 million to an account in the English isle of Jersey. The owner of the Jersey account was Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, and the sum represented one-third of a bonus that the Texas-based company agreed to pay the Angolan government for rights to pump the country’s offshore oil reserves. That same day, Sonangol transferred an identical sum of money out of Jersey to another Sonangol account in an unknown location. Over the course of that summer, large sums of money traveled from the Jersey account to, among others, a private security company owned by a former Angolan minister, a charitable foundation run by the Angolan president, and a private Angolan bank that counts an alleged arms dealer among its shareholders. Read the fourth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Marketing the New ‘Dogs of War’
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2022) – In October 1996, three ex-soldiers met for lunch in an Italian restaurant just off King’s Road in Chelsea, one of London’s toniest districts. They discussed the fortunes of a company with which they were all associated called Executive Outcomes, whose business was intervening in Africa’s wars – for a price. “It was becoming clear that EO … carried a lot of political baggage,” Tim Spicer, one of the diners who was perhaps Britain’s best-known mercenary, later observed. His companions suggested a plan to rebrand, restyle and relaunch the “dogs of war.” Read the third part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Making a Killing: The Business of War
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2022) – Amid the global military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments have turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf. A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has identified at least 90 such companies worldwide. The ICIJ investigation also uncovered a small group of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East that have profited from war commerce. Read more in ICIJ’s 11-part series.

Commentary
Paul Wellstone: A Lost Voice for Democracy
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2022) Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash last Friday that also claimed the lives of his wife, daughters, aides and the plane’s pilots. The Center offers its deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims. Wellstone shared his thoughts with Executive Director Charles Lewis on representative government and the influence of money on the political system for the Center’s 1998 book, The Buying of the Congress. The text of the interview, and a RealPlayer version, is available on the Center’s Internet site.

News Report
Center Provides Data on Interests of Candidates for Governor and Attorney General
(Washington, Oct. 25, 2022) Of the 244 candidates running in 37 states for the offices of governor and attorney general, 41 are not required to file financial disclosure forms. Six of the states holding elections for statewide offices this year do not require candidates to disclose any of their financial interests, leaving voters ill-informed about their backgrounds, the Center for Public Integrity has found. As a public service, the Center has entered information from those candidates for governor and attorney general who are required to disclose information about their personal financial interests into a searchable database.

News Report
National GOP Exchanges Soft Money for Hard in Florida
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2022) The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent $3.2 million in soft money to the Republican Party of Florida this election cycle, though there’s no Senate race in that state this year. There is a gubernatorial contest with national implications, however – Republican incumbent Jeb Bush is facing a tight race against Bill McBride, his opponent. In exchange for the soft money, Florida’s GOP has transferred $2.7 million in hard money to the NRSC, which can be spent to influence close Senate races with far fewer restrictions.

Primary Sources
Harken’s Ivy League Underwriter

Primary Sources
Harken Documents

Primary Sources
Bush, Harken, and the Public’s Right to Know
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2022) Earlier this summer, national media outlets reported on President George W. Bush’s activities as a director with Texas oil company Harken Energy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The stories referenced documents obtained by the Center during the course of research for the The Buying of the President 2020, as well as two Center investigative reports.

As a public service, the Center posted a number of documents related to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Bush for insider trading. In an attempt to allow for easier navigating of the information, we are re-posting all the information in chronological order.

We are also making available some new documents from our files that shed additional light on what was transpired at Harken while Bush was a director.

Primary Sources
A Brief History of Bush, Harken and the SEC

News Report
Impending Ban Hasn’t Stopped Soft Money Rush by Presidential Hopefuls
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2022) The presidential primaries are more than a year away, but that hasn’t stopped some of the potential frontrunners in that contest from exploiting a provision of the current campaign finance system to raise more than $7.6 million in unregulated soft money. Attorneys, Hollywood producers, investment firms, and others have written five- and six-figure checks to political committees affiliated with politicians who hope to be the next occupant of the White House.

News Report
State Disclosure Laws Are Too Weak to Follow the Money, Study Reveals
(WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2022) Nearly half the states received a failing grade for the campaign finance disclosure required of state-level political party organizations, according to an exhaustive analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. State parties, which raised $570 million in soft money in the 2020 election cycle, will likely play larger roles once the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act bans soft money donations to the national party organizations after the November elections. Due to lax state disclosure laws, following that money will be difficult, and in some states nearly impossible.

News Report
Fat Cat Hotel Still Open for Business
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2022) The Bush administration recently released a list of guests who’d stayed overnight in the White House, including some who were big fundraisers for the President. The practice of hosting donors in official residences – funded by taxpayers – first came to the fore in 1996, when the Center for Public Integrity found that Democratic Party donors and fundraisers were among the guests who spent nights at the historic Lincoln bedroom. The practice is one the Center has tracked ever since.

Letter from London
A History Lesson on Iraq
(LONDON, Aug. 9, 2022) – Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a “regime change”, a Western “settlement” on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes.

News Report
Insurance Industry Battles Bill Mandating Mental Health Coverage
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 13, 2022) The insurance industry, which has contributed more than $19 million in hard and soft money in the 2022 election cycle, is battling a bill that would require insurers to offer greater benefits to those suffering from mental illness. The measure has 240 co-sponsors in the House, 66 in the Senate, the support of the Bush administration – and a well-heeled industry aiming to weaken or scuttle the bill.

Commentary
Journalism and Patriotism
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2022) – In a democratic society, journalists exercise the highest form of citizenship by monitoring events in the community and making the public aware of them and their import; by skeptically examining the behavior of people and institutions of power; by encouraging and informing forums for public debate, writes Bill Kovach.

Primary Sources
More Harken Energy Corporation Documents
(Web posted Aug. 1, 2022) The White House has confirmed that Harken Energy Corporation, of which President Bush was a director from 1986 to 1993, formed an offshore subsidiary in September 1989 in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven. The subsidiary, Harken Bahrain Energy Company, was set up in anticipation of the company’s venture drilling for oil off the coast of Bahrain.

The Center has posted a registration record of the company from the Cayman Islands, as well as the minutes from the September 1989 and December 1989 board of directors meetings; in the latter, the board discussed and unanimously approved finalizing an agreement with Bahrain.

Commentary
Enhance Democracy in Colombia
(BOSTON, July 29, 2022) – Colombian president-elect Alvaro Uribe has announced he wants to assume more power by cutting functions of the judicial and legislative branches. Fernando Londoño, the man expected to be the next interior and justice minister, has said “there are no absolute rights.” Colombian ICIJ member María Cristina Caballero asks if these early announcements mean that Colombia is planning a return to the old days of authoritarianism.

Commentary
So Tim’s Death Will Not Have Been in Vain
(AUSTIN, Texas, July 26, 2022) – Brazilian investigative journalist Tim Lopes was assassinated last month by drug traffickers, while he was secretly filming in a territory controlled by one of the gangs. The death of Lopes in the line of duty will not have been in vain if, as a result, Brazilian society commits itself to root out the cancer of drug trafficking and organized crime, writes Rosental Calmon Alves.

Primary Sources
Further Harken Documents
(Web posted July 25, 2022) Documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity show President George W. Bush met with the president and CEO of Harken Energy Corp. shortly before the controversial sale of the company’s Aloha Petroleum subsidiary. The meeting took place 15 days before the effective date of the Aloha transaction.

Primary Sources
Harken Energy Corporation Internal Documents
(Web posted July 19, 2022) George W. Bush chaired a special committee of board members set up to review the terms of a $12 million note held by Intercontinental Mining and Resources Ltd., which was set up by Harken insiders to purchase Aloha, according to an internal Harken document dated March 14, 1990 that was obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. Harken’s treatment of that sale in its financial reports was challenged by the SEC, which forced Harken to restate its earnings for 1989, more than tripling its loss that year. View the document – and 18 others that were part of the SEC’s investigation, here.

Right on the Money: The George W. Bush Profile
(Web posted July 15, 2022) The Center’s investigation and reporting on Harken Energy began as part of our The Buying of the President 2020 project. The Center looked at each candidate and his or her “patrons” – the financial backers who helped their political careers. Here is the chapter on George W. Bush, as we published it two years ago.

Managing Editor’s Note
Bush, Harken and the Center for Public Integrity
(Web posted July 15, 2022) The Center has released Harken-related papers largely because of the overwhelming number of requests we have had for the documents, which we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. We have let the documents speak for themselves, without editorial comment.

Primary Sources
Additional Harken Documents
(Web Posted July 12, 2022) Since posting the last batch of documents yesterday, we received requests for more Harken-related documents. Today, we are posting Harken Energy Corporation’s 1989 Form 10K, which includes information on the Aloha transaction and the loans George W. Bush received from the company, and the company’s quarterly reports from the period ending June 30, 1990 (during which time Bush sold more than 212,000 shares of Harken stock) and the following quarter, which ended Sept. 30, 1990 (when Harken declared its $23.2 million loss).

Primary Sources
More Harken Documents
(July 11, 2022) The Center for Public Integrity, as a public service, is posting a second round of the documents that we obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act.

ICIJ Member Succumbs to Fatal Disease Contracted While Reporting
(WASHINGTON, July 11, 2022) – Robert Friedman, an ICIJ member and an award-winning American investigative reporter, dies after a long illness contracted while investigating a story in India.

Managing Editor’s Note
The Center’s Reports on Bush and Harken

Because of a column by Paul Krugman that ran in the New York Times and a follow-up Washington Post story, there has been renewed interest in two stories the Center published on the Public i concerning George W. Bush’s days as a director of Harken Energy. We published the first on Oct. 2, 2020 and the second on April 4, 2021.

Several readers have contacted us saying they’ve had trouble finding the reports; we hope this makes it easier.

Later in the day, we’ll begin posting the documents we received from the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act.

– Bill Allison

Primary Sources
Securities and Exchange Commission Documents
Because of a column by Paul Krugman that ran in the New York Times and a follow-up Washington Post story, there has been renewed interest in two reports the Center published on the Public i concerning George W. Bush’s days as a director of Harken Energy. We published the first on the April 4, 2020 and second on Oct. 2, 2020.

As a public service, we are offering here in PDF format some of the documents we received from the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act.

Study Shows States Were a $263 Million Back Channel for Soft Money
(WASHINGTON, June 25) – In the 2020 elections, Democratic and Republican state party committees raised $570 million, with 46 percent comprised of soft money transfers from national party organizations, according to an unprecedented study of party activity at the state level by the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Center Commentary
Freedom of Information Under Attack
(Washington, June 20, 2022) Asking the tough questions required of “watchdog journalism” is especially difficult in a national crisis atmosphere of fear, paranoia and patriotism. Trauma from the worst civilian loss of life on American soil and the resultant “war on terrorism” without borders have all contributed to an historic assault on openness and the public’s access to information by government officials at all levels.

War On Error: Live Pictures Taken by U.S. Planes Were Freely Available
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies.

War on Error: Watching the Terror Trails
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – If you heard anything, you would think it was a mosquito hovering, hunting for fresh prey. But in the dark night skies over the Balkan mountains, that distant faint buzzing may mark a hunter of a different sort. Shrouded from view, loitering up to 16,000 feet in the air are a small army of robot spy planes used by Allied forces to watch for trouble. Every day, the spy planes are aloft to monitor the high mountain passes and deep valleys for illicit traffic, across routes in use for centuries to smuggle arms, drugs, even women destined for the sex business. In Afghanistan, some of the spy-in-the-sky observers can even be armed to fire missiles by remote control.

War on Error: The Hot Line from Virginia to Al Qaeda
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – The flaw in the U.S. communications system is a Pentagon network called the Global Broadcasting Service (GBS), a new military satellite system begun in 1996. The system was designed to “provide efficient, direct broadcast of digital multimedia information” and give “deployed warfighters … high-bandwidth data imagery and video of critical information.” It uses commercial broadcast satellite technology. But it was not originally intended to use ordinary commercial TV satellites.

War on Error: A Spy Inc. No Stranger to Controversy
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – If you heard anything, you would think it was a mosquito hovering, hunting for fresh prey. But in the dark night skies over the Balkan mountains, that distant faint buzzing may mark a hunter of a different sort. Shrouded from view, loitering up to 16,000 feet in the air are a small army of robot spy planes used by Allied forces to watch for trouble. Every day, the spy planes are aloft to monitor the high mountain passes and deep valleys for illicit traffic, across routes in use for centuries to smuggle arms, drugs, even women destined for the sex business. In Afghanistan, some of the spy-in-the-sky observers can even be armed to fire missiles by remote control.

War on Error: Video Clips

Smog-Forming and Toxic Gases ‘Consistently’ Undercounted, Major Study Finds
(HOUSTON, May 31) In a discovery with national implications, a group of government, academic and private researchers involved in a $20 million study of Houston’s air quality have found that petrochemical plants in the city’s vast industrial complex have been significantly underestimating their emissions of key air pollutants in required reports to regulators.

Federal Board Concludes Current Chemical Regulations Are Inadequate
(Web posted May 15, 2022) A class of chemicals can, under certain conditions, cause runaway reactions (including the release of toxic gases), fires and explosions. Yet federal rules governing their storage and handling are inadequate to prevent those conditions from occurring, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board recently concluded, confirming an earlier Center report.

Jacques Monsieur Arrested in Turkey
(BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 14, 2022) – A Belgian man alleged to be one of Europe’s biggest gunrunners - and who has threatened to reveal secrets about the involvement of intelligence agencies and oil corporations in his illicit trade - has been arrested in Turkey.

News Release
Center Wins Sigma Delta Chi Award for Online Journalism
(Web posted May 1) The Center for Public Integrity has won the Society of Professional Journalists’ prestigious 2021 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for excellence in journalism. The Center won the award in the “Public service in online journalism (independent)” category for its report “Watchdogs on Short Leashes,” released Dec. 13 last year.

State Projects Report
Lobbyists Spent $565 Million to Influence States
(Web posted May 1) The Center for Public Integrity’s groundbreaking investigative research and analysis of special interest politics in state legislatures continues with the publication of the Center’s latest book, Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States. The book is being released in conjunction with “The Fourth Branch,” a new Center study that reveals lobbyists spent at least $565 million impacting legislation in states across the country in 2020.

Money in Politics Digest
Money In Politics Digest

ICIJ Member Works
Smoker awarded $700,000 after evidence was destroyed
(MELBOURNE, Australia, April 25, 2022) – In a landmark ruling, the Victorian Supreme Court found that Australia’s biggest tobacco company destroyed thousands of internal documents to deliberately subvert court processes and to deny a lung cancer patient a fair trial, writes ICIJ’s Australian member William Birnbauer.

ICIJ Member Works
The smoking gun - a perspective

ICIJ Member Works
Clayton Utz faces inquiries in destroying documents

ICIJ Member Works
Tobacco lawyers face investigation by legal regulators

ICIJ Member Works
How the spin doctors talked up tobacco as thousands died

Kuchma Approved Sale of Weapons System to Iraq
(WASHINGTON, Apr. 15, 2022) – Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved of the sale, and the smuggling, to Iraq of a high-tech radar system capable of detecting aircraft – even those using stealth technology – and targeting them with anti-aircraft missiles. Kuchma’s authorization of the sale, which violates U.N. sanctions, was recorded on tape.

Bush Administration Kills Safety Regulation Opposed by Donors
(Web posted April 11) The Bush administration quietly shelved a proposal to tighten regulations on a group of hazardous chemicals despite evidence linking dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries to accidents involving those chemicals.

Money in Politics Digest
Money In Politics Digest

Center Prevails in Freedom of Information Suit
(Web posted Mar. 29) The Center for Public Integrity has prevailed over the Department of Energy in a dispute over a Freedom of Information Act request filed in the spring of 1999. At issue were records related to the sale of Elk Ridge Naval Petroleum Reserve #1 to Occidental Petroleum Corp., which was the largest privatization in U.S. history.

Broadcast Industry Defeats Shays-Meehan Provision
(Web posted Mar. 7) Of the 14 amendments proposed to Shays-Meehan during the marathon house session in February, only three passed. One of those eliminated a reform that might have interfered with the more than $600 million broadcast outlets earn from showing political ads. The broadcast lobby got its way in Congress once again.

Victor Bout Denies Involvement in Arms Traffic
(WASHINGTON, March 4, 2022) – Victor Bout, accused by the United Nations of fueling Africa’s bloodiest wars and suspected of selling arms to the Taliban, has issued a statement denying the charges against him, his companies, and his associates. The Center previously reported on Bout’s alleged role in the arms trade.

Shays-Meehan Opens Soft Money Loophole In the States
(Web posted Feb. 28) The Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill, should it become law, would be the most wide-ranging attempt to reduce the influence of money in politics in decades. Even as it closes old loopholes, however, it opens new ones—particularly in those states that allow unlimited corporate and labor union contributions.

Center Commentary
The Enron Collapse: A Financial Scandal Rooted in Politics
(Web posted Feb. 25) The collapse of Enron has touched far more than the company, its investors and employees, and the executives responsible for its downfall. The scandal has undermined confidence in the securities markets, and those who regulate them – right up to the President himself, Executive Director Charles Lewis says.

EU Accuses U.S. Tobacco Companies of Trading With Iraq, Terrorists
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2022) – The European Union has alleged that U.S. tobacco companies have sold billions of cigarettes to Iraq, in violation of U.S. and international sanctions. The companies shipped the cigarettes through third countries and were aided by the PKK or Kurdish Workers Party, which the United States has labeled a terrorist group.

Martinez Reverses Course and Releases Fund to Nonprofits
(Web posted Feb. 13) Last November, the Center reported that a HUD freeze on grant payments imperiled as many as 40 small nonprofit groups that aid low-income housing residents. At a hearing on Feb. 13, HUD Secretary Mel Martinez said HUD’s actions caused “a tragic situation” and announced the groups would be paid.

ICIJ Member Works
How Medical Technology is Changing Who We Are
(OTTAWA, Feb. 2, 2022) – As the public keeps on hearing, science and medicine continue to advance to such a degree that in the coming years people will be able to make decisions regarding cloning and gene manipulation. The possibilities seem endless but so are the controversies and accompanying ethical questions. In a six-part radio series for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ICIJ member Bob Carty examines the growing issues stemming from the advancement of medical technology.

ICIJ Member Works
Tobacco Firm Accused of Smuggling
(ORANJESTAD, Aruba, Feb. 2, 2022) – The American tobacco industry has smuggled billions of cigarettes through Aruba to Colombia and Venezuela by using a company in Aruba’s free trade zone as a cover, writes ICIJ’s Dutch member Joop Bouma.

ICIJ Member Works
BAT’s Paradise

ICIJ Member Works
“BAT does not smuggle”

Commentary
The Dangers of Disinformation in the War on Terrorism
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2022) – Journalists covering the war in Afghanistan face the dual challenge of reporting under difficult conditions and guarding against military disinformation. That has been made all the more difficult by a new information doctrine gaining favor in the Pentagon.

ICIJ Member Works
Quiet burial of a secret agent
(DWELLINGUP, Australia, Feb. 1, 2022) – When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975, huge quantities of the dioxin-laden herbicide Agent Orange were sold to war surplus buyers. ICIJ member Jan Mayman went to Vietnam to find out how Agent Orange ended up in one small Australian community.

Big GOP Contributor Advised Administration’s Energy Task Force
(Web posted Jan. 31; updated March 4) The Bush administration has refused to release the names of the outside advisers of its National Energy Policy Development Task Force. The Center discovered that one of those advisers, energy executive and generous GOP donor Forrest Hoglund, sought specific help for a company project.

Africa’s ‘Merchant of Death’ Sold Arms to the Taliban
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2022) – Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout, already exposed by the United Nations for his role in fueling some of Africa’s bloodiest wars, practiced his trade in another war-torn region. He sold millions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Commentary
Enron, Integrity, Reader Feedback, and Clearing Up a Few Misconceptions
(Web posted Jan. 25, 2022) Few reports we’ve released have stirred up as much interest as those we’ve posted the last few weeks on Enron. Managing Editor Bill Allison responds to the most common comments and criticisms from readers, and offers some historical context for the Center’s interest in Enron, which stretches back to the Clinton years.

Questionable Accounting Industry Practices Led Fellow ‘Big Five’ Firm to Ignore Enron Case
(Web posted Jan. 25, 2022) While conducting a peer review of troubled accounting firm Arthur Andersen’s records, fellow ‘Big Five’ accountant Deloitte & Touche ignored newly bankrupt Andersen client Enron from its analysis. According to Deloitte & Touche’s spokeswoman, that’s normal procedure when firms check up on each other’s work.

Managing Editor’s Note
Pentagon Releases Misleading Statement
(Web posted Jan.22) In a statement released Jan. 22, the Pentagon noted that Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t own stock in Enron. It further claimed that a Center for Public Integrity report, which noted that when Rumsfeld filed his financial disclosure report, he was one of 14 officials who owned Enron, was inaccurate. The Center stands by its report.

Enron’s Accounting Firm Has Close Ties to Administration
(Web posted Jan.16) Since 1998, the accounting firm implicated in the collapse of Enron, Arthur Andersen LLP, and its employees have contributed $212,825 to President George W. Bush. The total makes Andersen one of Bush’s biggest financial backers. Like Enron, the accounting firm has spent lavishly on contributions and lobbying.

The Bush 100
Center Releases Report on Bush’s Top Appointees
(Web posted Jan.14) The average net worth of the top 100 members of the Bush administration was somewhere between $3.7 million and nearly $12 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of executive branch personal financial disclosure forms.

Fourteen Top Bush Officials Invested in Enron Stock
(Web posted Jan.11) A Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal disclosure forms shows 14 high-level administration officials owned stock in Enron worth, at the time of their filings, as much as $886,000. That finding is from an analysis of the finances and professional affiliations of the top 100 officials in the Bush administration, which will be released Monday, Jan. 14.

Enron Top Brass Accused of Dumping Stock Were Big Political Donors
(Web posted Jan. 9, 2022) A group of 24 Enron executives and directors poured $800,000 into political campaigns, including $74,202 to the Bush campaign, from 1999-2021. Those individuals, along with five others, have been accused in a lawsuit of selling $1.1 billion in company stock when they knew – and the public didn’t – that Enron was nearly insolvent.

2021 Archives

Center Commentary
New GOP Chairman Marc Racicot Mixes Politics and Profits
(Web posted Dec. 20) Marc Racicot, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, has unabashedly declared that he will simultaneously, actively lobby the federal government for major corporate clients. That is a first, even in ethically challenged Washington, writes Center Executive Director Charles Lewis.

Special Report
Racicot Will Continue Lobbying While Serving As RNC Chair
(Web posted Dec. 6) President Bush’s choice to head the Republican National Committee, former Montana governor Mark Racicot, will not give up his other career when he assumes the top job at the RNC. Instead, he’ll continue lobbying for energy, transportation, and entertainment interests. There’s ample precedent for his dual role in past party chairmen.

50 States Watch
HUD Division’s Overspending Leaves Nonprofits in a Lurch
(Web posted Nov. 30) The Office of Multifamily Housing Assistance Restructuring, created to rein in costs of a $4 billion Department of Housing and Urban Development program that provides rent subsidies to low income tenants, violated federal law by making grants to nonprofits over and above the amount authorized by Congress. HUD froze the office’s budget, leaving some nonprofit groups with gaping holes in their budgets. HUD wants $20 million to fix the problem.

Special Report: ICIJ
White House Sought to Soften Anti-Terrorism Legislation in Support of Tobacco Companies
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2021) – As Congress rushed to pass a bill aimed at cracking down on terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, tobacco companies tried to insert language into the measure that would protect them from a spate of pending civil RICO lawsuits filed by foreign governments in U.S. courts. In their unsuccessful effort, the tobacco companies found an ally in the Bush administration, which pushed for the provision.

Special Report
‘Tell Them Nothing Till It’s Over And Then Tell Them Who Won’
(Web posted Oct. 31) In wartime, government considers the news media a menace. And that means certain stories in this war have not been given the attention they deserve, writes Phillip Knightley of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Knightley is author of The First Casualty: the War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-maker from the Crimea to Kosovo.

Special Report
In ’93, Biological Defense Program Was Misguided, Poorly Managed
(Web posted Oct. 29) A study by the Center for Public Integrity in 1993 concluded that the United States was ill-served by the nation’s investment in biological warfare research. The report found a lack of accountability in the Pentagon’s Biological Defense Research Program and that the United States was failing to respond to the threat of attack by known agents, including anthrax.

Special Report: ICIJ
Arrested Italian Cell Sheds Light On Bin Laden’s European Network
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2021) – A 100-page Italian investigative report, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, tells a stunning story of cooperation among suspected cells of alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden in Europe.

Special Report
Authorities Question Criteria for Access To Flight Simulators
(Sept. 25, 2021) Congress and the executive branch are reviewing the largely unregulated access to the nation’s 527 licensed flight simulators, and to the unknown number sold abroad, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Authorities have established that at least nine of the 19 suicide hijackers attended U.S. flight schools, and that at least three rented flight time at simulator centers.

Special Report
Will Truth Again Be First Casualty?
(Web posted Sept. 21) With the United States on the brink of a new war, it is useful to recall the restrictions on the news media imposed in the Persian Gulf, Grenada and Panama. Afterward, Center for Public Integrity concluded that “information about Defense Department activities . . . [was] restricted or manipulated . . . to protect the image and priorities of the Defense Department and its civilian leaders, including the president."

Special Report: ICIJMemWorks
Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist
(LAHORE, Pakistan, Sept. 13, 2021) – Osama Bin Laden was a young Saudi student when he became one of thousands recruited, with the CIA’s blessing, to fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin. In this excerpt from his book on the Taliban, veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid follows the man who helped make Afghanistan a haven for terrorists; the man many suspect is the culprit behind the worst act of terrorism in American history.

Special Report
U.S. Biological Weapons Lab Locked Down, 50 Miles from Pentagon
(Sept. 12, 2021) Shortly after a fuel-laden jetliner plowed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the U.S. Army quietly locked down a sensitive Army biological weapons lab at Fort Detrick, 50 miles to the north, in Frederick, Md.

Special Report
Telecom Chief Could Face Conflict Issues
A key Commerce Department official could face frequent conflict-of-interest issues because her office controls high-tech policies that affect a number of telecommunication and wireless firms for which she and her husband have worked. (Sept. 10, 2021)

Special Report
Capitol Hill Stem-Cell Backers Received Health Industry Dollars
U.S. representatives and senators who strongly pushed for federally subsidized embryonic stem cell research have received more than $4 million in contributions from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which stand to benefit from that research, according to a Public i review of campaign donations in the last three election cycles. (Aug. 30, 2021)

Special Report
Clarke Company Faces New Smuggling Claims
Kenneth Clarke, currently embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious bid for the leadership of Britain’s Conservative Party, faces a major embarrassment through his boardroom connection with the cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco. New evidence from a whistleblower suggests that, during Clarke’s tenure as deputy chairman, the controversial firm has been using a Swiss subsidiary and bank account secretly to control a worldwide smuggling network. (Aug. 22, 2021)

Special Report
Internet Voting Project Cost Pentagon $73,809 Per Vote
(Washington) A pilot Internet voting project to encourage voter participation by Americans abroad cost the Pentagon $6.2 million and received high marks from its director, although it delivered only 84 votes in the November election and failed to address a key security concern, the Center for Public Integrity has learned. (Aug. 9, 2021)

State Secrets
Study to Examine ‘Soft Money’ In State Politics
Political parties registered at the state level raised more than $600 million during the 2020 elections, according to initial findings released today as part of a project that will, for the first time, examine soft money in the states. (July 26, 2021)

50 States Watch
Ohio Legislator Who Helped Kill Ban on Drilling Has Ties to Oil, Gas Industry
The Ohio state legislator who helped sandbag a proposal to ban oil and natural gas drilling permanently in Lake Erie has numerous financial ties to the oil and gas industry, and receives thousands of dollars of campaign contributions from petroleum interests. (July 19, 2021)

Special Report: ICIJ
U.S. Military Aid to Latin America Linked to Human Rights Abuses
(WASHINGTON, July 12, 2021) – U.S. anti-drug money spent on Latin America has been funneled through corrupt military, paramilitary and intelligence organizations and ends up violating basic human rights, a new Center for Public Integrity investigation shows. Versión en español

Commentary
You’ll Be Hearing More About ‘Cross-Border’ Journalism
“Cross-border” investigative journalism is still in the pioneer stage. You might not have heard much about it. But you will. And journalists from developing countries can teach their often smug and richer counterparts about the possibilities. A commentary by Stephen Handelman, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism. (July 5, 2021)

Special Report
CIA Gave at Least $10 Million To Peru’s Ex-Spymaster Montesinos
The CIA gave ex-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos at least $10 million in cash over the last decade, as well as high-tech surveillance equipment that he used against his political opponents, the Center for Public Integrity has learned. (June 28, 2021)

Center Commentary
Judiciary Should Let Sunshine In To Reduce Public Skepticism
The U.S. judicial system is the most secretive of any part of government, except for national security, intelligence or law enforcement agencies. But questions about funding, along with ethics issues, are beginning to impugn the reputations and perceived probity of judges and the entire judicial process. In this commentary, Center founder and Executive Director Charles Lewis examines the ethics issues surrounding the nation’s judges. (June 8, 2021)

50 States Watch
California Utilities’ Donations Shed Light On Blackout Crisis
California’s three largest public utilities spent $69 million on political spending and lobbying between 1994 and 2020, with the majority of the total directed toward creating and retaining the state’s disastrous deregulation law, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation. The law – passed unanimously by the California Legislature in 1996 – precipitated what has been described as the most costly public policy miscalculation ever by state lawmakers. (May 30, 2021)

‘Cheating of America’
Chrysler Opted Out Of U.S. Tax System
(Web posted May 18) How could Chrysler, one of the Big Three American carmakers, manage to opt out of the U.S. tax system and cease to be an American business? The merger of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz allowed the new company to become a German corporation, no longer owing U.S. taxes on its overseas profits. The tale is told in The Cheating of America by Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity. (May 18, 2021)

Center Commentary
World’s Journalists Should Collaborate In Age of Globalization
Prepared remarks at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 26, 2021

Center Commentary
D.C. Culture: Clean? How About Mercenary
No one disputes that there are thousands of dedicated public servants who work in government at all levels. But in Washington today, the political decision-making process is neither clean nor boring, as syndicated Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen recently wrote. It’s a corrupt, mercenary culture, countenanced by nearly all. Commentary by Charles Lewis, founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. (April 20, 2021)

Special Report
The Day Democracy Died in Russia
The once-independent Russian television station NTV has been taken over by the state-dominated natural gas giant Gazprom in a saga that is less about business than about democracy. By Yevgenia Albats, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. (April 17, 2021)

Special Report
Program to Help Small Farmers Now Virtually Run by Industry
After drought forced small farmers from their land in the 1930s, the federal government created a crop insurance program that by the 1990s had ballooned to $7.3 billion. Many say that the program’s main beneficiaries today are no longer small farmers, but the large private insurance companies that help run it. (April 17, 2021)

Special Report: ICIJMemWorks
Australian Parliament Warned On Tobacco Smuggling-Crime Link
(WASHINGTON, April 11, 2021) – A Public i report on tobacco smuggling and organized crime has been introduced into the Australian Parliament, amid warnings that the issues raised should figure in a billion-dollar deal involving British American Tobacco and its national affiliate. In Italy, meanwhile, a parliamentary report has criticized Philip Morris for not doing enough to help authorities track cigarette smugglers linked to criminal organizations.

‘Cheating of America’
Some Helping Themselves To Bush-Size Tax Cuts
(April 5, 202) Some Americans, by cheating on their taxes, are giving themselves a bigger tax cut than even the Bush administration is proposing for the rest of the country. A report based on ‘The Cheating of America,’ by Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity.

The Bush Team
Bush’s Carbon Dioxide Flip-Flop Came Through Staffer Who Had Lobbied for Car-Exhaust Firm
President Bush’s decision to abandon his campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide emissions was routed through a key Bush aide who had lobbied for one of the world’s largest manufacturers of automobile exhaust systems.

Special Report
Marc Rich Inquiry Highlights Strange Bedfellows
(March 9, 2021) Buried in the furor over former President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich is the role Rich played in supplying oil to South Africa’s apartheid government in the 1980s, in violation of international sanctions. Ironically, two leading congressional inquisitors into Clinton’s last-minute pardon also worked against U.S. sanctions.

Special Report: ICIJ
Tobacco Companies Linked To Criminal Organizations In Lucrative Cigarette Smuggling
(WASHINGTON, March 3, 2021) – A new Center for Public Integrity report, by its International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, indicates that tobacco smuggling is increasingly dominated – often with the knowledge and consent of the tobacco companies – by a handful of criminal organizations that in some cases have links to organized crime.

50 State Watch
Fla. Legislators, Lobbyists Cozy in the Sunshine
In response to calls for campaign finance reform, Florida joined a group of about 20 states with state limits on campaign contributions. But not everyone follows the rules. (Feb. 23, 2021)

Special Report
Lobbying, Old-Time Politics Block Legislation on Human Cloning
Nearly three years after Dolly, there still is no federal legislation in place to regulate or even supervise human cloning. What is perhaps the most complex scientific and moral issue ever faced by Congress has become the object of traditional inside-the-Beltway maneuverings. (Feb. 15, 2021)

The Bush Team
New FCC Chairman Had Big Telephone Player As a Major Client
New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell used to be a lawyer who represented GTE Corp., a major telecommunications player. GTE merged last year with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon Communications, the nation’s largest local phone company. Powell has never recused himself from matters relating to GTE or Verizon, including the merger. (Feb. 13, 2021)

The Bush Team
Bush’s Choice of EPA Advisers Signals Tilt Toward Industry
corporate-heavy team advised George W. Bush on the Environmental Protection Agency during his transition to the presidency. Its composition signals a new era of a weaker federal role and a bias toward free-market solutions in complying with environmental regulations, say veteran EPA observers. (Feb. 12, 2021)

Special Report
Longtime Australian Policy: Kidnapping Children From Families
(London, Feb. 8, 2021) The Australian government kidnapped mixed-race Aboriginal children as a matter of policy, one called ‘breeding out the color.’ The historians, the writers, the filmmakers, the social workers, the lawyers, the clergy, the campaigning journalists were nowhere to be seen. Second of a two-part excerpt from Phillip Knightley’s ‘Australia: A Biography of a Nation.’

50 State Watch
Hoosiers ‘Kind of Expect Things to Be Sleazy’
At least 24 Indiana state lawmakers have personal financial interests in the real estate and insurance industries, the Center for Public Integrity has found. Those industries contributed $1.1 million to state legislators during the 1998 election cycle. Twenty lawmakers had similar connections to the legal industry, and 12 lawmakers had similar financial ties to the health and pharmaceutical businesses. (Feb. 5, 2021)

The Bush Team
Bush’s New Chief of Staff Once Fought for Polluters
As their top lobbyist, Andrew H. Card Jr. led a $25 million campaign on behalf of the ‘Big Three’ U.S. automakers. Now as White House chief of staff, Card may be in a position to steer U.S. policy favorably for his former employers. (Feb. 2, 2021)

The Bush Team
Ashcroft Used State Employee to Fund-Raise, Records Show
While he was attorney general of Missouri, John Ashcroft made use of a state employee to conduct fund raising and other election activities, used letterhead with the attorney general’s seal to solicit donations from contributors, and had an associate solicit campaign contributions from a business consultant to a company being investigated by Ashcroft’s office, court records show. (Jan. 30, 2021)

Special Report
Australian Past Bordered On Slavery and Genocide
(Jan. 30, 2021) "It remains one of the mysteries of history that Australia was able to get away with a racist policy that included segregation and dispossession and bordered on slavery and genocide,’ writes Phillip Knightley in his latest book, Australia: A Biography of a Nation.

50 State Watch
California Awash in Campaign Cash, Potentials for Conflict of Interest
A Center for Public Integrity study of recent California campaign contributions found that lawmakers who received contributions from the dental, tobacco, gambling and labor industries offered legislation that had the potential of helping those contributors. (Jan. 25, 2021)

Center Commentary
How Bush Handles McCain Will Set Tone for His Presidency
How will George W. Bush respond to the effrontery of John McCain, who is forcing a roll call vote on the issue of campaign finance reform as the Senate’s first order of business? (Jan. 23, 2021)

50 State Watch
Va. Legislators Have Close Ties To Industries They Regulate
In many cases, Virginia lawmakers have personal financial connections to the industries that are among their largest donors. And a Center study of disclosure records shows that lobbyists for Philip Morris, which benefited from favorable legislation, showered individual Virginia legislators with more than $19,000 in gifts. (Jan. 17, 2021)

Special Report
Young Pilots Riskier Than the Over-60s Who Are Turned Away
(Jan. 8, 2021) Despite research showing that older pilots can be safer than younger ones, the government continues to require pilots to retire at 60, even as it certifies alcoholics, past drug abusers, pilots with psychiatric problems and those who are blind in one eye. The rule was born of cronyism and bogus medical claims and is sustained by massive doses of political contributions.

2020 Archives

Center Commentary
Will U.S., Britain Trade Places On Press-Freedom Laws?
In November, the United States came within a pen stroke of dramatically curtailing freedom of the press. Had the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2021 been signed as passed by Congress, it would have reversed the common observation that the American press is the freest in the world - and Britain’s the most restricted. A commentary by Duncan Campbell, who himself has been arrested under Britain’s Official Secrets Act. (Dec. 22, 2020)

Center Commentary
Everything I’m Telling You Is Entirely Legal
Too much corruption is perfectly legal, and the people who write the laws made it that way. Why the Center for Public Integrity pursues the mission it does, by Charles Lewis, founder and executive director. (Dec. 21, 2020)

50 State Watch
Delaware Skimming Probe Deepens Into Most Extensive In State’s History
It began as an audit of a peculiar series of transactions by Delaware state legislators involving $1.7 million in state and federal transportation money. It has evolved into the most extensive criminal investigation ever in the state over alleged conspiracy, fraud, bribery and other corrupt activities involving prominent public officials and their political operatives, the Center for Public Integrity has learned. (Dec. 19, 2020)

Special Report
Tobacco Settlement Helps Everyone but Smokers
(Dec. 8, 2020) Two years after cigarette makers reached a landmark settlement with the states over costs associated with treating sick smokers, less than 10 percent of the money is earmarked for anti-smoking programs.

Special Report
Center Sues Energy Dept. For Release of Bids On Elk Hills Oil Field
The Center for Public Integrity has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Energy, seeking bid information on the largest sale of federal property to private hands in U.S. history. The Elk Hills oil reserve was privatized under Vice President Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” initiative. Occidental Petroleum Corp. – which has longstanding financial links to Vice President Al Gore and his father, the late Sen. Al Gore Sr. – was awarded the property after it bid $3.65 billion. (Nov. 22, 2020)

Special Report
Bush, Gore Recount Forces Can Raise Unlimited Cash Without Disclosure to Public
Supporters of George W. Bush and Al Gore waging the recount battle in Florida are able to raise unlimited amounts of cash without necessarily disclosing the donors or reporting the amount of money raised or spent. (Nov. 16, 2020)

Special Report
In Congressional Races, Money Talked All the Way to the Voting Booth
Collectively, the winners raised two and a half times as much as their opponents, according to a Public ianalysis of Oct. 18 filings with the Federal Election Commission. (Nov. 9, 2020)

Special Report
Tobacco Firms Used Suspected Drug Traffickers, EU Lawsuit Claims
A European Union lawsuit against two major U.S. tobacco companies says RJR Nabisco had dealings with suspected narcotics traffickers in Spain and money-laundering suspects in the Caribbean, and claims that smuggling activities by Philip Morris 'have enabled drug lords to launder their illicit profits." (Nov. 7, 2020)

Special Report
Unopposed, but Creative in Spending Big Campaign Bankrolls
(Nov. 3, 2020) While 63 members of the House of Representatives face little or no opposition on Election Day, those same incumbents have raised an average of $500,000 each for their noncompetitive races.

Issue Ad Watch
Hired Hands Grab Chance to Skirt ‘527’ Disclosure Law
The so-called “527” groups, so named after a section of the IRS code, could operate politically related campaigns without disclosing its identity, contributions or expenditures. (Nov. 1, 2020)

Special Report
Bush Leads in Donations From Federal Contractors
(Oct. 31, 2020) George W. Bush received more than twice as many campaign donations from the employees and political action committees of the nation’s top 25 federal contractors as did his opponent.

Special Report
Did Taxpayers Lose on Deal For Oil Field?
In 1997, the Clinton administration auctioned off the Elk Hills oil field in California as part of the “Reinventing Government” initiative touted by Al Gore. It was the largest single privatization in U.S. history, and critics say it might have cost the public millions, if not billions, in lost income. (Oct. 27, 2020)

Center Commentary
Gore’s Failure to Respond Is Outrageous, Unacceptable
Sometimes government officials treat the American people like growing mushrooms - keep them in the dark and cover them with manure. And whenever that happens, it is infuriating and inexcusable.

Issue Ad Watch
Montana an Unlikely Target For Out-of-State Campaign Cash
With the U.S. Senate majority up for grabs, would-be voters in Montana’s U.S. Senate race have been inundated by ads from outside groups spending millions. (Oct. 25, 2020)

Special Report
Thanks to Sponsors, GOP Threw Twice the Party The Democrats Did
When they met in Philadelphia, the Republicans put on nearly double the number of private receptions, parties and other celebrations than the Democrats would in Los Angeles. Here’s the most comprehensive list of private GOP convention events, including who paid for them. (Oct. 24, 2020)

50 States Watch
‘Big Insurance’ Industry Dominates State Legislatures
(Oct. 12, 2020) There are 1,972 insurance companies or associations that lobby state legislatures – one lobbying interest for every three state lawmakers.

Center Commentary
Protecting the Rights of the People Through Investigative Reporting
(Oct. 6, 2020) It is hard to imagine a newspaper in the world today that has been more courageous or more tenaciously persistent in its pursuit of the truth than The Namibianin southwest Africa. The inconvenient, unmanageable presence of the investigative journalist is a problem for governments and corporations all over the globe.

Investigative Report
Bush Violated Security Laws Four Times, SEC Report Says
(Oct. 4, 2020) George W. Bush violated federal securities laws at least four times when he was a director of a Texas oil firm in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to an internal Securities and Exchange Commission report.

Issue Ad Watch
Here Are the Groups Targeted By ‘No-Soft-Money’ Pledge In New York Race
New York’s U.S. Senate candidates, Rick Lazio and Hillary Rodham Clinton, have agreed to discourage outside interest groups from airing issue advocacy ads during the contest. The Center profiles 23 groups directly named by the pledge or by either candidate as seeking to affect the outcome of the election. (Oct. 3, 2020)

50 States Watch
Lawmaker – or Lawbreaker?
(Sept. 28, 2020) Since 1990, at least 78 sitting and former state lawmakers have pleaded guilty or no contest, or were convicted of felony and misdemeanor crimes. A compilation of charges filed against state lawmakers over the past decade, and how the cases were resolved.

News Report
Media Firms Buy Their Way To Political Access
The largest media firms have gained the kind of access to the political process that only money can buy. “Off the Record: What Media Corporations Don’t Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas” documents the influence that the large broadcasting, cable and publishing conglomerates wield in Washington. (Sept. 27, 2020)

Special Report
Attack on Colombian Civilians Linked to U.S. Bomb
A previously unreleased FBI report says an explosion that killed at least 19 Colombian civilians, including several children, two years ago was caused by a U.S.-designed fragmentation bomb. (Sept. 22, 2020)

Issue Ad Watch
Outside Groups Push Pedal to the Metal In Michigan Race
The Michigan U.S. Senate contest between Republican incumbent Spencer Abraham and his Democratic opponent, Rep. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan’s Eighth District in Lansing, is proving a hotbed for moneyed interest groups. Sometimes the candidates themselves don’t know who is spending the money. (Sept. 21, 2020)

Special Report
Black Candidates See Little of the Millions Their Parties Raise
Of the more than one million individual and political action committee contributions made to political parties, congressional and presidential candidates, blacks received only about 1.5 percent of the total. For African Americans, changing the way political money is raised might, in fact, be the most critical issue of modern day politics. (Sept. 15, 2020)

Special Report
When the Democrats Wined and Dined, Here’s Who Paid the Piper
A compilation of the many private, invitation-only parties held in the Los Angeles area throughout August’s Democratic National Committee convention. Who sponsored; who hosted; who paid to gain influence. First in a series on the national conventions of the two major parties. (Sept. 14, 2020)

Issue Ad Watch
Legal Challenge Seeks to Bring Down New Campaign Finance Law
A conservative group in Alabama has filed the first court challenge to recently passed campaign finance legislation that aims to force certain tax-exempt political groups to disclose their donors and expenditures. (Sept. 5, 2020)

Guest Commentary
Lawsuit Against Clean Air Act By Members of Congress Raises Conflict-of-Interest Questions
(Sept. 5, 2020) In 1998, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va., and fomer White House counsel C. Boyden Gray filed a lawsuit against the Clean Air Act. Were Congress’ ethics rules violated?

Special Report: ICIJMemWorks
Impeached Philippine President Flaunts Extravagant Lifestyle
(MANILA, Philippines, Nov. 15, 2020) – Philippine President Joseph Estrada is fighting to stay in office after being impeached Nov. 13 on charges that he took illegal gambling kickbacks and siphoned off tobacco taxes. Grandly supporting four households, the former film star has flaunted an extravagant lifestyle.

Center Commentary
Profiteering from Democracy
In his January 1998 State of the Union address, after decrying the campaign-fund-raising “arms race,” President Clinton proposed a major new policy that would address a big part of the problem—the high cost of campaign commercials. (Aug. 30, 2020)

50 States Watch
Legislators With Timber Ties Happy to Help the Industry
(Aug. 29, 2020) Ted Ferrioli advocates for the timber industry in his dual roles as a paid timber advocate and Oregon state legislator. Such practices are not unusual in statehouses across the country.

50 States Watch
From State House to Congress
(Aug. 24, 2020) State lawmakers often treat the legislature as a springboard to higher office. But what does the public really know about these up-and-comers’ financial backgrounds?

Special Report
Embryo Research: Profit vs Ethics?
The National Institutes of Health yesterday announced it will allow federal funding of research on ‘stem cells’ obtained by the destruction of human embryos. While patients may eventually benefit from this research, so will the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Second in a series ofongoing reports . (Aug. 24, 2020)

Issue Ad Watch
IRS Seeks to Clarify New Campaign Finance Disclosure Law
A campaign finance law intended to resolve questions about unregulated soft money makes headway and asks for assistance in clarifying the law after its first filings were made public. (Aug. 17, 2020)

Investigative Report
Democratic Fundraiser, Cyber-Investor Enjoys Access to White House, Gore
David Shaw, one of the largest campaign donors to Al Gore and the Democratic Party, prefers to keep his Wall Street investment companies out of the limelight. (Aug. 17, 2020)

Investigative Report
Cloud of Corruption Around Democrats’ Union Patron
AFSCME and Its President, Gerald McEntee, Have Given Party More Than $3.6 million (Aug. 9, 2020)

50 States Watch
Low-Paid Texas Lawmakers Tops in Connections to Lobbyists
(Aug. 8, 2020) Half of Texas’ part-time state lawmakers have at least one financial tie to an interest that lobbies the legislature.

Investigative Report
Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough
State Department questioned deal with firm linked to Russian mob (Aug. 2, 2020)

Center Commentary
‘Reformer With Results’? Don’t Count on It
Don’t look for George W. Bush to loosen the stranglehold Washington lobbyists and their clients have over our political process today. (Commentary, Aug. 2, 2020)

Special Report
Little-Known Texas Patron Guided Bush Policies On Vouchers, Tort Reform
(Washington, July 31) Only three days after Texas Gov. George W. Bush was inaugurated in 1995, he declared the state of the Texas judicial system to be an “emergency” situation, and pressed the legislature to hurriedly pass legislation that would make it harder for consumers to sue companies for defective products.

Issue Ad Watch
Undisclosed Soft Money To Pay for GOP Perks; 21 on Hill Seek Change
(Washington, July 28) At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, cars and drivers will be provided for all attending Republican members of Congress, along with 24-hour concierge service, staffed with 50 workers at the ready, according to news reports.

50 States Watch
From 'God’s Handwriting’To Corporate Profits
(July 26, 2020) Genome companies and their lawyers and lobbyists have locked up federal policy on human gene patenting

50 States Watch
State Legislators Routinely Weakening Ethics Laws
(Washington, July 25) In a scene straight out of “Animal House,” the Massachusetts House of Representatives mixed the low art of late-night partying with the serious business of writing the government’s budget for the coming year. They guzzled beer and snoozed in back offices. They chanted “Toga! Toga!” on the House floor, according to witnesses, while staffers took turns voting in the place of members missing from the chamber.

Special Report
White House Refuses to Release List of Gore’s Sleepover Guests
(Washington, July 20) Vice President Al Gore’s office has been stonewalling requests to provide a list of persons who have been overnight guests at his official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

Issue Ad Watch
Interests Behind 527 Groups Seeking Ways Around New Law
(Washington, July 12, 2020) Though the law forcing certain tax-exempt political groups to disclose their donors and expenditures is just days old, some of the interests behind the groups are already seeking ways around it.

50 States Watch
Who Wants to Know?
(July 10, 2020) Despite Varying Levels of Requirements, Many State Lawmakers Conceal Outside Interests (July 10, 2020) Also: Money is Influence, Information is Power

Center Commentary
Money is Influence, Information is Power
(July 10, 2020) Four in ten Americans surveyed could not identify the current vice president of the United States, according to a 1998 survey. Two-thirds of those interviewed did not know the names of their representatives in Congress. If this is an indication of what citizens know about their federal government, what does this disturbing research imply about our knowledge of what goes on in our state legislatures?

Issue Ad Watch
Congress Passes Campaign Finance Reform
(Washington, June 29, 2020) With a 92-6 Senate vote, Congress has passed the first campaign finance reform legislation in 21 years. The Full and Fair Campaign Finance Disclosure Act of 2020, introduced in the Senate by longtime campaign-reform advocate John McCain, R-Ariz., was approved by the Senate June 29 after clearing the House shortly after midnight on June 28.

Issue Ad Watch
Congress Sifts Competing Measures On Campaign Finance Reform
(Washington, June 27, 2020) On June 8, the Senate passed an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would force currently invisible political groups to disclose their identities and their sources of funding. Congress is trying to decide which measure will best accomplish that.

Issue Ad Watch
Joint Fund-Raising Committees: One-Stop Shopping for Donors
(Washington, June 22, 2020) Political parties are turning to raising money jointly with candidates for Congress in greater numbers than ever this year – and the questionable practice has raised more than $13 million so far this election cycle.

Investigative Report
Oil-Financed Congress Members Target Public-Interest Group
(Washington, June 14, 2020) A saga involving Big Oil, millions of unrealized tax dollars, whistle-blowers, members of Congress and campaign contributions is resuming on Capitol Hill, with a highly partisan House committee threatening contempt-of-Congress charges against a small, besieged public-interest watchdog group.

Special Report: ICIJ
U.K. Considering Formal Investigation Into Cigarette Smuggling
(LONDON, June 15, 2020) – The British government is considering launching an in-depth investigation into “extremely serious” allegations of international tobacco smuggling by giant tobacco multinational BAT (British American Tobacco).

Issue Ad Watch
N.J. Candidates Discover ‘527’ Cash Cow
(Washington, June 2, 2020) Two Republican candidates for the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race have set up “527 groups” a full year before the party primary.

Issue Ad Watch
The heat is on
(Web Posted May 30, 2020) New York Republicans might be nominating Rep. Rick Lazio instead of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for the U.S. Senate, but one thing remains the same: Outside interest groups don’t want Hillary Rodham Clinton elected.

Issue Ad Watch
Why Mitch Wants Rudy’s Money
(Washington, May 30) – Before calling it quits, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had raised more than $19 million for his Republican Senate campaign against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Giuliani campaign, after paying remaining bills and returning $2.8 million in general election funds to contributors, will be left with more than $3 million.

Special Report: ICIJ
Philip Morris Accused of Smuggling, Money-Laundering Conspiracy In Racketeering Lawsuit
(WASHINGTON, May 23, 2020) – Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco multinational, has engaged in smuggling and drug-money laundering for years in a scheme to avoid taxes and boost sales of its cigarettes, according to allegations in a new racketeering lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court.

News Report
Army General Had Business Deal With Clinton-Gore Money Man
(Washington, April 27) Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, the first female three-star general in the history of the U.S. Army and the accuser in a sexual harassment scandal, was in business with controversial Democratic money man Terence McAuliffe for almost two years, The Public i has learned.

Issue Ad Watch
Group to Spend $10 Million Against Candidates Not Hawkish On Free Market
(Washington, 17 April) A group of Wall Street investors, media executives and fiscal policy experts have created a new political group that intends to spend $10 million to oust Republican and Democratic members of Congress who don’t favor free-market policies strongly enough.

Center Commentary
A Former Justice Department Official Comments on Cleaning Up the Campaign Finance System
Charles G. LaBella, former chief of the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force, wrote a memo to Attorney General Janet Reno arguing that an independent counsel should be appointed to investigate the fund-raising roles of President Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Vice President Gore. Reno ignored the recommendation. LaBella’s report was recently leaked to the press.

News Report
Bush’s Insider Connections Preceded Huge Profit On Stock Deal
(Washington, 4 April) The year 1986 was very good for George W. Bush.

News Report
Pentagon Trained Troops Led by Officer Accused In Colombian Massacre
(Washington, March 30) Pentagon officials, under pressure to investigate alleged links between elite U.S. military trainers and Colombian forces implicated in a 1997 civilian massacre, have confirmed that they trained soldiers commanded by the officer accused of masterminding the attack.

Issue Ad Watch
Loophole Allows Donors to Give Without Leaving a Trace
(Washington, 30 March) The same day that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore unveiled his campaign finance reform proposal, an organization with ties to former California Gov. Pete Wilson launched a national attack on Gore by exploiting a tax-law loophole that allows a group to influence elections without having to report its existence to the Federal Election Commission or the Internal Revenue Service.

News Report
$5,000 Buys Companies Access to GOP Attorneys General
(Washington, 21 March) For as little as $5,000, corporations are buying access to presidential candidate George W. Bush, along with key Bush strategist Karl Rove – not to mention potential protection from billions of dollars in lawsuits.

News Report
Overnight Guests At Governor’s Mansion Added $2.2 Million To Bush Campaign
(Washington, 15 March) Sixty of George W. Bush’s overnight guests at the Texas Governor’s Mansion have collectively given and raised more than $2.2 million to further Bush’s political career, an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity shows. At least 15 of Bush’s guests are members of Bush’s elite team of presidential fund-raisers, the $100,000-plus “Pioneers,” according to the full list of overnight guests from January 1995 through February 2020.

News Report
Under the Influence: Party Machines, Lobbyists And Special Interests
(Washington, March 2, 2020) It is no surprise and nothing new in the land of the spin and the home of the sound bite that each and every candidate for the presidency in the year 2020 would like to convince us that he and only he is the candidate of reform, the candidate with integrity, the candidate who will bring a new day to America

News Report
Candidates’ Positions on Rwanda Genocide: Should U.S. Intervene?
Steve Bradshaw and Mike Robinson won the 1999 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting for a BBC documentary exposing deliberate international inaction to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Center Commentary
Denial and Hypocrisy
(Washington, Feb. 24) Anyone who has ever doubted that God has a sense of humor should take a look at the current Republican presidential campaign. Who would have thought a few years ago that the two leading GOP contenders for the White House would be beating their chests over campaign finance reform?

News Report
McCain Tax Bill Would Save Corporate Contributors Millions
A bill Sen. McCain proposed in October would enrich a few of those well-heeled corporations – the large telecommunications firms that have bankrolled much of his political career.

Special Report: ICIJ
Global Reach of Tobacco Company’s Involvement in Cigarette Smuggling Exposed in Company Papers
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2020) – In its search to maintain and enlarge cigarette markets and corporate revenue, British American Tobacco – the world’s second largest tobacco multinational and parent company of Brown & Williamson – exploited a sophisticated network of smuggling routes throughout Asia.

Special Report: ICIJ
Major Tobacco Multinational Implicated In Cigarette Smuggling, Tax Evasion, Documents Show
(WASHINGTON, Jan 31, 2020) – Forrest Hoglund, Chairman and CEO of Arctic Resources Co., was one of an undisclosed number of executives from private energy companies that advised Cheney and members of his task force last year. Hoglund has also been a generous contributor to Republican causes; he has given more than $202,000 since 1997.

News Report
Steve Forbes, Cattle Farmer
Forbes’ top ten career patrons, six are Wall Street investment bankers, who earn the lion’s share of their income speculating in the stock market. All that income would be tax-free under Forbes’ flat-tax proposal.

News Report
How George W. Bush Scored Big With the Texas Rangers
(Washington, Jan. 18) When George W. Bush first embarked on a deal to buy the Texas Rangers professional baseball team in 1988, he already had his eye on the governor’s mansion in Austin. But he knew that to have a shot at winning, he would need better credentials than a string of unsuccessful oil companies and a failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1989 he told Time magazine, “My biggest liability in Texas is the question, ‘What’s the boy ever done?’ He could be riding on Daddy’s name.”

News Report
How the Gores, Father and Son, Helped Their Patron Occidental Petroleum
On Sept. 7, 1995, Vice President Albert Gore Jr., stood on the White House lawn and talked in sweeping terms about ending the era of big government. He touted a list of recommendations formulated by the National Performance Review, an initiative Gore directed that he claimed streamlined the federal bureaucracy, cut unnecessary waste and helped make the government ‘work better and cost less’.

News Report
Bradley Was Driving Force Behind Biggest Tax Giveaway
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley laid out his plans for tax reform on Jan. 4, attacking corporate tax shelters and special interest provisions. Bradley is certainly an expert on the subject; in 1986, he was the driving force behind the biggest tax giveaway to special interests ever.

News Report
The Buying of the President 2020
Each of the leading presidential candidates for the 2020 election has done public- policy favors for his campaign contributors, according to a new Center for Public Integrity book, The Buying of the President 2020 (Avon). Every major White House contender who has held past elective office has ‘career patrons,’ or longtime financial sponsors, who have underwritten his political career. And every major aspirant has used his government position to help his patrons.

Center Commentary
Campaign Checklist
(Web posted Jan 4, 2020) The peaceful transfer of power is a majestic moment in any democracy, but it is particularly poignant for the most powerful nation on earth. Indeed, through wars and depressions, assassinations and scandals, for more than two centuries the United States of America unflinchingly has chosen its national leader every four years in an elegant exercise “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

1999 Archives

News Report
FBI Tracked Alleged Russian Mob Ties Of Giuliani Campaign Supporter
A prominent commodities trader who acknowledges a business history with a reputed Soviet Bloc crime figure and a notorious arms dealer has been one of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s top campaign supporters. Giuliani is expected to be the Republican candidate next year for a U.S. Senate seat from New York.

News Report
Vice President’s Quarters Draws Fund-Raisers’ Bucks
A man’s home might be his castle, but for Al Gore, the vice president’s official residence is more than that: It’s a tool to cultivate some of his biggest donors.

News Report
Belying His Rhetoric, McCain Worked for Megamerger Sought by Campaign Patron AT&T;
Belying His Rhetoric, McCain Worked for Megamerger Sought by Campaign Patron AT&T;’: ‘The Public i’, an online investigative report from The Center for Public Integrity.

News Report
Federal Elections Panel Too Swamped to Check Campaign Finance Abuses
The Federal Election Commission is mired in an investigation backlog and will be swamped by thousands of cases, giving it little chance for enforcement or for regulating campaign spending abuses, according to an analysis of FEC records by the Center for Public Integrity.

News Report
San Francisco Bank Linked To Laundering Probe At Bank of New York
From all outward appearances, Boris Avramovich Goldstein is a model immigrant, a successful businessman in the San Francisco Bay area, where he lives in a $1.2 million home and where he founded a variety of firms.

News Report
U.S. Support for Tobacco Overseas: Going Out of Business?
The exquisitely appointed anterooms leading to the secretary of state’s office are a mix of 18th century antiques, crystal chandeliers, oil paintings of past envoys and carved moldings in the shape of tobacco leaves, blossoms and seed pods. It gives new meaning to the term tobacco lobby.

News Report: ICIJ
How U.S. Policy on Marketing Tobacco Overseas Fell Through the Cracks in Malawi
The economically impoverished country of Malawi in southern Africa is an example of what fell through the cracks in U.S. tobacco policy abroad.

News Report
Elizabeth Dole, Inc. – Now She Can Focus On Her Lucrative Public Speaking
Following the blueprint of her husband and fellow presidential hopeful, Bob Dole, the one-time president of the American Red Cross had a very lucrative career in which her appearances earned her at least $1.6 million since the beginning of last year, usually at $40,000 per event.

News Report
Coelho Failed to List $300,000 Loan On Financial Disclosure Report
Tony Coelho, the chairman of Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign, did not report a now-controversial $300,000 personal loan on a federal financial disclosure report that he signed on June 11, 1998, the Center for Public Integrity has learned.

News Report
Coelho Tapped Government Resources To Repay Personal Loan
Tony Coelho, the chairman of Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign, used government employees and resources to raise funds to help repay a $300,000 personal loan that he obtained from a Portuguese bank, the Center for Public Integrity has learned.

News Report
Investigation, Audit Reveal Past Mismanagement By Gore’s Campaign Manager
On May 11, praising “his leadership skills and strategic vision,” Vice President Al Gore named Tony Coelho general chairman of Gore 2020, his presidential campaign organization. “Tony has been a great leader in every endeavor he has undertaken - government, business, and as an advocate for the disabled,” Gore said in the news release announcing the appointment. The release went on to describe Coelho as, among other things, “a successful businessman.”

News Report
Toxic Deception
On the Friday before Labor Day 1998, with much of official Washington already on its last summer trek to seashore or home congressional district, a brief statement appeared in the Federal Register. Only a paragraph long, the notice was six years in the making. The Environmental Protection Agency had, at last, finished its study on the risks of dry cleaning and the availability of safer alternatives.

Center Commentary
Citizen Muckraking
With 6 billion people on the planet and 270 million living in the United States, who can blame anyone for thinking that one person can’t make a difference? But don’t believe it for a second.

Books & Projects

The Center is perhaps best known for its investigative studies and exhaustively researched publications—some available free online, others available for purchase. The list in the left column contains just a few of our most recent projects.

State Secrets

Club 100: Over 100 Americans Gave More Than $100,000 to State Political Parties

DONOR LIST

See the list of donors who contributed $100,000 or more to state party organizations in the 2020 election cycle(Nov. 21, 2022) The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act changed the rules for big money at the national level, but it does little to take the big money or big donors out of state and local politics. The Center identifies those individuals who donated $100,000 or more during the 1999-2020 election cycle, the most recent election for which complete data from every state is available.
Full Report

National GOP Exchanges Soft Money for Hard in Florida

(Oct. 24, 2022) The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent $3.2 million in soft money to the Republican Party of Florida this election cycle, though there’s no Senate race in that state this year. There is a gubernatorial contest with national implications, however – Republican incumbent Jeb Bush is facing a tight race against Bill McBride, his opponent. In exchange for the soft money, Florida’s GOP has transferred $2.7 million in hard money to the NRSC, which can be spent to influence close Senate races with far fewer restrictions.
Full Report

Undisclosed: Half of states fail to keep public informed of state party campaign activity

Nationwide Numbers View state rankings

Sidebars
Operating Accounts
Washington State
Federal Election Commission
Methodology How we did it

State Pages Details in each state(Sept. 26, 2022) Nearly half the states received a failing grade for the campaign finance disclosure required of state-level political party organizations, according to an exhaustive analysis by the Center for Public Integrity released today.

The poor disclosure at the state level will become an even more critical issue when the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act goes into effect in November, as corporations and other special interests divert huge contributions from the national parties to the states.

Full Report

State parties collected nearly $570 million in contributions, soft money transfers in 2020
States used as a $263 million back door for soft money


 View the webcast
(previously recorded)
Sidebars
Background
The Dispersion of Disclosure
State Bans on Soft Money
Soft Money Primer
Important Dates
Profiles
Top Organizational Donors
Top Individual Donors
Soft Money Transfers to States: 2020 Election Cycle
(June 25, 2022) In the 2020 elections, Democratic and Republican state party committees raised $570 million, with 46 percent comprised of soft money transfers from national party organizations, according to an unprecedented study of party activity at the state level.

The transfers of unregulated soft money from federal party committees to their state counterparts confirm a commonly held perception that state parties are used to launder soft money and influence presidential and congressional elections in a way never envisioned nor intended by federal election law.

Full Report

Data Search In Your State
Find out about money coming in the state parties and how they spent it. Visit our map to access information on the parties in a specific state.

State Projects

Hired Guns
While lobbyists and their employers in 39 states spent more than $715 million wining, dining and generally influencing state lawmakers in 2022, many details about how those dollars were spent remain hidden from public view, according to a comprehensive analysis released today by the Center for Public Integrity. More than half the states received a failing grade for their registration and spending disclosure requirements filed by legislative lobbyists. (May 15, 2023)

Top Dogs
Of the 244 candidates running in 37 states for the offices of governor and attorney general in 2022, 41 are not required to file financial disclosure forms leaving voters ill-informed about their backgrounds. In an attempt to shed light on how personal interests could affect the way these leaders govern, the Center is providing access — in a searchable database — to information from the remaining candidates in the top-of-the-ticket state races that are required to file disclosure forms. (Oct. 25, 2022)

The Fourth Branch
Lobbyists in 34 states spent $565 million wining, dining and influencing state legislators and members of the executive branch in 2020, according to “The Fourth Branch,” a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. (May 1, 2022)

Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States
Capitol Offenders takes a critical look at the 7,400 men and women who make up our state assemblies and how their own personal financial interests often take precedence over the interests of their constituents. Capitol Offenders also examines the influence of powerful industries on the nation’s mostly part-time, underpaid and unknown lawmakers. (May 1, 2022)

Watchdogs on Short Leashes
More than half of the nation’s state legislatures have no independent oversight of elected legislators’ ethical conduct. A survey of the nation’s ethics agencies revealed that most state legislatures passed ethics laws, but limited the power of ethics agencies through legislative control of budgets and toothless enforce laws. (Dec. 13, 2021)

Our Private Legislatures
At a time when the nation’s 50 state legislatures wield unprecedented power, the lawmakers who run them have significant private financial interests in the laws they impose on millions of Americans. A two-year investigation found startling conflicts of interest and other flaws in the system of state government, affecting policy decisions on everything from education to nuclear waste, taxes to health care. (May 21, 2020)
2020 IRE Award Winner, online category

Hidden Agendas
Center researchers methodically evaluated financial-disclosure laws that apply to members of the legislatures in all 50 states, and ranked the states on basic disclosure components and access to public records. The report showed that nearly half of the states’ disclosure systems fail to provide the public with basic information on state lawmakers’ private interests. (Feb. 15, 1999)

The Buying of the President 2024


How Much Are They Worth?
Kerry, John
$198,794,683 - $839,038,000
Cheney, Dick
$19,050,028 - $86,445,000
Bush, George
$8,837,079 - $21,936,000
Edwards, John
$8,707,072 - $36,500,000
Graham, Bob
$7,560,067 - $31,113,000
Dean, Howard
$2,194,036 - $5,061,000
Lieberman, Joseph
$320,061 - $1,536,000
Gephardt, Dick
$134,022 - $614,000
Moseley-Braun, Carol
$127,008 - $380,000
Kucinich, Dennis
$2,002 - $32,000
Sharpton, Al
Unknown - No Data Available
Asset ranges based on 2021 financial disclosure filings, and includes spousal and dependent information.
Top recent articles [More…]
6/13/2023 Millionaires Continue to Dominate Presidential Race

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2023 – If Sen. John F. Kerry sticks with his campaign’s legal view that he cannot use his wife’s money to run for president, the Democratic candidate could lose as much as $832 million in potential campaign capital, according to a Center for Public Integrity study of recent financial disclosure records.

5/7/2023 Kerry Carries Water for Top Donor

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2023 – Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., whose largest campaign contributor lobbies on behalf of telecommunication interests, pushed the legislative priorities of its clients in the wireless industry on several occasions, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign, lobbying and congressional records has found.

4/24/2023 The Money Race: After First Quarter, Kerry Leads

Despite North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ quick-from-the-gate start raising $7.4 million in campaign cash since Jan. 1, Sen. John Kerry narrowly remains the top fundraiser amongst Democratic presidential contenders.

3/12/2023 Gore Spent Recount Money in Primary States Before Bowing Out

As former Vice President Al Gore mulled a White House run late last year, he used a campaign finance loophole to send $100,000 he raised two years ago for the Florida recount to bolster his position in the first two states where presidential candidates test their mettle.

1/27/2023 It’s a Millionaires’ Race: New Financial Disclosure Database Details Assets of 2024 Presidential Candidates

If Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry were elected to the White House in 2024, he would be America’s richest president in more than a century.

Kerry, a democratic presidential candidate, has listed assets worth between $165 and $626 million on his latest financial disclosure forms, and has publicly said that he has not ruled out using some of this wealth to run for president.

The Cheating of America

How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions - and What You Can Do About It

Taxes have long been an issue of impassioned debate in American life and politics. Although many agree with Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famed quote that “taxes are what we pay for a civilized society,” some of America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations have taken it upon themselves to enjoy the fruits of that society without paying their fair share.

In their new book, The Cheating of America, Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity, exhaustively document how several prominent names in everyday American life – from Apple Computer and Colgate to the producers behind such blockbuster films as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Total Recall – have shirked their civic responsibility to contribute financially toward the well-being of the nation as a whole, and instead have used their wealth to keep those fortunes out of the reach of the Internal Revenue Service.

Meanwhile, the IRS continues to reap only pennies on the dollar for those cases where wealthy taxpayers challenge the government in federal court; faced with the prospect of crossing swords with armies of high-priced lawyers, the IRS often instead focuses its efforts on middle-income taxpayers, some of whom resort to representing themselves in U.S. Tax Court. While Leona Helmsley’s bold proclamation that “only the little people pay taxes” did nothing to save her from prosecution, it may have been a prescient view of the tax system as we know it today.

 Four easy ways to buy this book:

On the web: go to the Center Store
By phone: Call Regina Russell at (202) 466-1300
By e-mail: Send an email to storekeeper@publicintegrity.org,
By mail: Send a check or money order for $19 and $4 shipping and handling to:
Center for Public Integrity
The Cheating of America
910 17th St. NW
7th Floor
Washington, DC 20206

Off the Record

What Media Corporations Don’t Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas

The giant media corporations of today are special interests in their own right, with unique legislative agendas that they push on Capitol Hill and in the offices of federal regulators. The companies that dominate the airwaves and purvey the news in print are little different from any other industry. They spend millions on campaign contributions. They fly lawmakers and regulators around the world on all-expenses-paid junkets. They hire a “who’s who” of former congressional staffers, members, and FCC officials to plead their cases in the nation’s capitol. And more often than not, they get what they want, which is why media corporations are widely regarded as the most powerful special interest in Washington.

Citizen Muckraking

How to Investigate and Right Wrongs in Your Community

With 6 billion people on the planet and 270 million living in the United States, who can blame anyone for thinking that one person can’t make a difference? But don’t believe it for a second.

In two decades as an investigative journalist, uncovering impropriety around the nation and abroad, countless times I have seen individuals persistently ask unpopular but entirely reasonable questions about matters affecting their daily lives: the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they buy and eat, the schools their children attend. And frequently their curiosity and perseverance have brought about change that improves the quality of those same lives.

The goal of the Citizen Muckraking project is to outline some basic techniques of investigative reporting that you—or any other citizen—can use to obtain information about the toxic-waste dump in your neighborhood; the city-council zoning decision that seems to benefit one of the council members personally; the reason your utility rates have been going up; why some property-tax assessments increase yearly but others don’t; etc. Information truly is power, and we will show you precisely how to get the facts.

In addition to posting this information here, the Center has produced a “how-to” manual for community activists. Citizen Muckraking contains inspiring stories about ordinary people who start asking basic questions about things in their communities that somehow just don’t seem right. They write letters, attend hearings, obtain government documents, ask direct questions of public officials—all things that full-time, professional investigative reporters do day in and day out—and their questions actually bring about change.

Canned Hunts Exposed

A Citizen Muckraking Guide

Canned Hunts Exposed: A Citizen Muckraking Guide picks up where Animal Underworld left off, showing how to use the techniques of an investigative reporter to uncover canned hunts and expose their inner workings.

The Buying of the President 2020

The Buying of the President 2020
By Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity

The Buying of the President 2020 Project extends beyond our groundbreaking investigative book on the presidential candidates published in 1996. It includes candidate profiles, searchable databases on the candidate’s travel, honoraria, campaign finance information, top career patron lists, multi-donor lists, and articles on the candidates written by the Center.

The Buying of the President 2020 Project includes: The Money Trail, Candidate Biographies, and Background reports.

The Money Trail

Double Dippers:
Hedging bets on candidates is common for some of the largest donors the presidential candidates have. The Center has sorted out which companies are protecting their interests the most by giving to multiple candidates and the political parties.
Campaign Finances:
Check out the size of each candidate’s campaign war chest.
Top Career Patron lists for the Political Parties and Presidential Candidates:
A comprehensive list of the all-time largest donors to the Democratic and Republican parties and each of the presidential candidates.
Honoraria Database:
The names of organizations that sponsored speeches given by the presidential candidates when they held public office and the fees these candidates were paid.
Travel Database:
All trips taken by presidential candidates when they held public office, who sponsored the trips, the destination, and whether their spouses and/or children attended.
Assets Database:
Assets held by various presidential candidates during 1998.
Matters Under Review:
This is a never-before-compiled collection of the investigations conducted by the Federal Election Commission regarding the current candidates in their past federal campaign efforts. Check out campaign finance violations by Hatch, Gore, McCain, and others. Summaries of the issues and the Federal Election Commission’s findings are included in those investigations where action was taken against the respondents.

The Candidates

Look at our detailed biographical information on each of the presidential candidates. Browse our candidate profiles including:

Professional and political histories
Contact information
Books written by and about the candidates

The Background

The Center wrote about presidential candidates in 1992, when Pat Buchanan was running, and in 1996 when Al Gore, Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes, and Pat Buchanan were campaigning. Browse previously released investigative reports on these candidates, their past advisers, and influential friends and see what the center exposed about each of them!

The Center conducted interviews with many top party, corporate, and union leaders.

Animal Underworld

Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species

Named best investigative book of 1999

A vast and previously undisclosed underground economy exists in the United States. The products bought and sold: animals. Alan Green and The Center for Public Integrity expose the sleazy, sometimes illegal web of those who trade in rare and exotic creatures.

This startling book reveals which American zoos and amusement parks dump their “surplus” animals on the middlemen adept at secretly redirecting them into the private pet trade. And we meet the men and women who make their living by skirting through loopholes in the law, or by ignoring the law altogether.

For anyone who cares about animals; for pet owners, zoo-goers, wildlife conservationists, and animal welfare advocates, Animal Underworld is gripping, shocking reading.

The Buying of the Congress


Statement of Charles Lewis
Chairman and Executive Director
The Center for Public Integrity
September 9, 1998

Listen to the statement, with press Q & A
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As this nation finds itself on the brink of a constitutional crisis, as Members of Congress prepare to address the momentous question of whether the President committed high crimes and misdemeanors in office, we should remember that acts of grand larceny are being committed on Capitol Hill every day. That’s why we’re here today.

Woodrow Wilson once observed: “The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”

In many respects, the book we release today is about the “invisible empire” to which Wilson referred. The Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is the result of a year-long investigation by the Center into how Capitol Hill lawmakers respond to the most basic concerns of the American people. It shows, clearly and compellingly, how Congress has been warped—has allowed itself to be warped—by the powerful and monied interests that Wilson saw a century ago.

For most Americans, Congress is a distant abomination, out of sight and out of mind. We don’t think about it much, we barely know what it does, and we can hardly even name our elected representatives. The jarring reality, however, is that Congress is—to use the vernacular—in our faces every single day. We can’t go to the supermarket, the local drugstore, the hospital emergency room, or the nursing home where our loved ones are being cared for without being directly affected by the decisions made in Congress. We can’t watch television, take a flight on an airplane, pay our taxes, or eat dinner without being affected by laws enacted by Congress. We simply can’t tune out or escape the fact that Congress is a significant, relevant, sometimes even omnipotent force in our lives.

This book—the work of some three dozen writers, editors, and researchers—spells out, as starkly as any before it, what’s gone wrong on Capitol Hill. The short of it is that too many lawmakers seem to have forgotten for whom they are working. Too frequently, on the most important public-policy issues of our time, at critical forks in the road between the broad public interest of the American people and the narrow, economic agenda of a few vested interests, Congress has taken the wrong path. That wrong path, more often than not, is illuminated by flashing, neon-green dollar signs—campaign contributions and other forms of political lucre documented throughout this book with data from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization.

In short, we have too few public servants on Capitol Hill today. We have far too many private servants.

Let me move now from generalities to specifics. I’d like to take a few moments to share with you some of the highlights of our investigation.

At least 400,000 Americans die each year from lung cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses. For some time now, Capitol Hill lawmakers have had incontrovertible evidence that for decades tobacco company executives lied—to them, and to the American people—about the effects of smoking. Nevertheless, Congress bestowed a kind of “most-favored-industry” status on Big Tobacco and continues, in fact, to finance various federal programs that grow tobacco, insure it, export it, and protect it from imports. Tobacco, we show in this book, is a cash crop, politically speaking. From 1987 through 1996, the big tobacco companies channeled more than $30 million in contributions to Members of Congress and the two major political parties.
The state of the nation’s health-care system is a red-hot political issue these days, and little wonder. Consider this fact: In 1980, 54 percent of all workers at large and medium-sized firms in the United States had the full cost of health insurance for them and their families paid by their employers; by 1993, that number had dropped to just 20 percent—one in five. Meanwhile, however, the American people continue to pay the full health-insurance costs for Members of Congress. The health-care industry has made more than its share of House calls—and Senate calls—in Washington. Indeed, this single industry has made more than $72 million in political contributions to Members of Congress from 1987 through 1996.
Thousands of Americans die each year, and millions more become sick, from the food they eat. And the number of disease-producing agents in the nation’s food supply is growing. Cases of poisoning from the E. coli O157:H7 bacterium alone have increased dramatically in the past decade. Government officials have described the current food-safety situation as an epidemic. But during this period, as the food industry poured more than $41 million into the campaign treasuries of Capitol Hill lawmakers, Congress all but ignored the escalating public-health crisis.
Each year 27,000 children who live and work on farms across the nation are injured, and some 300 are killed. Overall, an estimated 64,000 adolescents aged fourteen to seventeen went to hospital emergency rooms for work-related injuries in 1992—and only a third of on-the-job injuries are typically seen in emergency rooms. Against this backdrop, we found, Congress has failed to protect children from their exploiters. Well-heeled groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the National Restaurant Association, and the like have poured millions of dollars into the political coffers of Capitol Hill lawmakers and spent millions more lobbying to weaken child labor laws.
Big money, we found, can get big results. As ranked on the Fortune 500, the nation’s largest corporations—from number-one General Motors Corporation through number-500 Vencor, Inc.—gave at least $182 million to Members of Congress from 1987 through 1996 through their political action committees (PACs) and made at least another $73 million in “soft money” contributions to both parties during the same period. That’s a quarter of a billion dollars! It is hardly surprising, then, that over the years Congress has cut corporate taxes in a big way. In 1956, corporate income taxes accounted for 28 percent of all federal tax revenue. Today they account for only 10 percent of federal tax revenue. Guess who’s had to pick up the slack?
I could keep going, with example after example, but they are all in The Buying of the Congress. I’d like to emphasize, too, that campaign contributions aren’t the only way in which special interests work their will on Capitol Hill. We found that 443 Members of Congress and 2,020 congressional aides accepted at least $8.6 million in all-expenses-paid trips all over the United States and around the world in 1996 and the first half of 1997. Who footed the bill for these trips? Various business and labor interests that want Congress to adopt their public-policy agendas.

Another way for special interests to ingratiate themselves with Congress, of course, is to hire former lawmakers and their aides. We found that, from 1991 to 1996, at least 15 percent of senior Senate aides and at least 14 percent of senior House aides became registered lobbyists in Washington. We found that the revolving door practically came unhinged on some of the “money” committees, such as the Senate and House Commerce Committees, where 36 and 40 percent of senior staffers there, respectively, left to become registered lobbyists. So if you ever wonder why the lobbyists who ply their trade on Capitol Hill are so effective and so highly compensated, remember the numbers—they are true insiders.

And so are the donors—the big ones play the political game, too, from the inside. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 1996 the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate was $4.7 million, and the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives was $674,000. You can’t raise this kind of money from community bake sales or backyard barbecues. Only one-quarter of 1 percent of the population gave $202 or more to congressional candidates or the political parties in the 1995-96 election cycle. Ninety-six percent of the American people do not give a dime to any politician or party at the federal level. In other words, political campaigns depend substantially on deep-pocketed donors—companies, labor unions, individuals—with business before the federal government. It is a very, very exclusive game. And the money buys more than just access; it buys action.

In The Buying of the Congress, we name the top ten “career patrons” of thirty-two of the most powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill. To formulate these lists, we studied, sorted, and otherwise scrutinized a full decade’s worth of campaign contributions to Members of Congress. The results tell us that Congress has, in some cases, been sold to the highest bidder.

Consider the case of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Over the past ten years, Terry Kohler and his wife, Mary, have been Gingrich’s most generous supporters, giving more than $816,000 to Gingrich’s campaigns; to his new PAC, the Monday Morning PAC; and to GOPAC, which for years managed to keep its top donors secret. The Kohlers, who are from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, own Windway Capital Corporation, which has diverse interests, including one company that manufactures packaged food products; another company that manufactures stainless-steel ware; and another company, North Marine Group, Inc., that makes sails and other items for luxury yachts. Windway also owns companies that make sailboats. Windway’s boat businesses reflect Terry Kohler’s interest in yachting; he owns a seventy-foot yacht.

Kohler was dealt a big blow in 1990, when the budget deal added a 10 percent tax on purchases of yachts valued at more than $100,000. Which perhaps explains why Newt Gingrich—then a back-bencher in the House—took to the floor in July 1991 with, among others, two of his loyal lieutenants, Richard Armey and Tom DeLay. Gingrich purportedly wanted to talk about tax fairness and to dispel misconceptions about who really paid the luxury taxes. He said, “As we are all learning—for example, from the boat builders—if you raise taxes on people who buy a product, then you lay off people who are making the product, and it is not very fair to the thousands of boat workers who are not working today.”

Gingrich didn’t mention, however, that repealing the luxury tax—which Congress did in 1994—was more than fair to Terry Kohler, his number-one patron.

And so its goes, right down Gingrich’s list, from his number-two patron—Capital Formation Counselors, Inc., an investment firm in Belleair Bluffs, Iowa—to perhaps a more familiar name in the number-ten spot—Golden Rule Financial Corporation, the life-insurance company that has pushed medical savings accounts. Interestingly, not one of Gingrich’s top ten career patrons is from his home state of Georgia.

Is it any wonder that so many Americans, looking at the “For Sale” sign that politicians have erected in front of the Capitol Building, have all but dropped out of the system? The numbers are telling: In 1996, out of 196.5 million Americans who were eligible to vote, 146.2 million people registered, and less than half of the voting age population, 96.4 million people, actually voted. It was the lowest voter turnout of any presidential election year since 1924. Why should average Americans think that they can make a difference?

The book we release today is an investigative report about Congress: the lawmakers we have hired to protect our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and what they—our employees—have actually done on our behalf. We hope that it will lead Americans to demand a higher level of accountability from those who call themselves public servants.

Fairly or unfairly, the public perception today is that most politicians will not risk their careers for anything. Indeed, the word “conscience” together with the word “politician” seems oxymoronic.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In our book we recount the stories of two Senators who were enormously respected by their peers for their strength of character, their principled independence, and their humility. The two Senators were John Williams, a Republican from Delaware, and Philip Hart, a Democrat from Michigan.

Williams, a chicken farmer and feed dealer from Southern Delaware, had never gone to college. He exposed the biggest corruption scandals of the late 1940, 1950s, and 1960s—sending hundreds of government officials to prison, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars—without a sleuthing staff, without the power of subpoena, without a special counsel serving as prosecutor. When Williams retired from the Senate after four terms in 1970, Democrat Sam Ervin of North Carolina took to the floor of the chamber to praise him—several years before Ervin would become a household name in the historic Senate Watergate hearings. Sam Ervin said that John Williams “did more to expose mismanagement and even corruption in government than any other Senator in the history of the United States.”

Williams always informed the subject of an investigation of his findings personally before he announced them publicly, and never once in twenty-four years did he falsely accuse anyone. He never had a press secretary. “I always figured that if there was something newsworthy, the press people would find it, and if they don’t find it, then it isn’t newsworthy,” he once told me. “I didn’t need public relations.”

Philip Hart, who was wounded as an infantryman on D-Day during World War II, didn’t interact well with strangers, was reluctant to ask people to vote for him, and sometimes even apologized for running for office. He was elected to the Senate in 1958 and served there until his death from cancer in 1976.

Hart, a man of incorruptible integrity and personal courage, elevated politics to a level of purity that should be an example to every Capitol Hill lawmaker. He frequently took difficult, courageous stands on issues directly against his own political self-interest. In late 1968, for example—as Michael O’Brien tells the story in his biography of Hart—Hart gave a staff aide on the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, which he chaired, the go-ahead to investigate the automobile industry, which all but owned his home state of Michigan.

The principled actions of Williams and Hart were gutsy and unusual in their time. Today, they are almost unimaginable. All of us should ask, Why? This book is our effort to do just that.

Thank you.

Nothing Sacred

The Politics of Privacy

An in-depth study that examines how Congress has put big-money corporate interests ahead of the basic privacy interests of the American people.

Nothing Sacred was released on July 28, 1998…

Unreasonable Risk

The Politics of Pesticides

A comprehensive study that examines how Congress and the EPA regulate the pesticide industry and its products, including those commonly used inside the home and on the lawn.

Unreasonable Risk was released on June 30, 1998.

Fat Cat Hotel

How Democratic High-Rollers Are Rewarded with Overnight Stays at the White House

Where to stay in the nation’s capital? If you’re one of the Democratic Party’s big donors or fund-raisers, your hotel of choice isn’t the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton. It’s the White House.

In June 1996, Forbes magazine reported that the Democratic National Committee was using overnight stays at the White House as a perk to entice wealthy donors to make six-figure contributions to the party. For a contribution of $130,000, “you can spend the night in Abraham Lincoln’s bed,” ABC News’s David Brinkley, picking up on the Forbes item, said on This Week With David Brinkley, the Sunday-morning television show. “But be warned. I am told Lincoln’s bed is hard and lumpy.”
“This has become an urban myth, like the alligators in the sewers of New York,” Amy Weiss Tobe, the DNC’s press secretary, told the Center for Public Integrity. “It is just not true.”

There’s nothing unusual, of course, about politicians and political parties “servicing” their donors and fund-raisers. In the summer of 1995, the DNC - in a letter signed by the party’s co-chairmen, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Donald Fowler, and first disclosed by the Chicago Sun-Times - offered potential supporters a “menu” of rewards. A contribution of $100,000 or more, for example, would get a donor two meals with President Clinton, two meals with Vice President Albert Gore Jr., a slot on a foreign trade mission with DNC leaders, and other benefits, such as a daily fax report and an assigned DNC staff member to assist with their “personal requests.”

Fowler responded to charges that the party and the President were selling access and influence to contributors by saying that such fund-raising efforts would continue until the law requires both parties to operate differently. “Until the system is changed, we will not unilaterally disarm,” Fowler reportedly said, accurately reflecting the fact that every party and administration have given special treatment to its biggest supporters. A Democratic lobbyist familiar with perks for contributors told National Journal that spending the night at the White House was like having access to “the best candy store in town.”

The Center for Public Integrity has determined that, since 1993, more than 75 Democratic contributors and fund-raisers have spent the night in the White House - mostly in the Lincoln or Queen’s Bedrooms - as guests of President and Mrs. Clinton.

When guests spend the night in the Lincoln or the Queen’s Bedroom, they receive five-star treatment. At night, the beds are turned down and breakfast menus placed on the beds. Guests may choose where they would like to eat breakfast - possibly in the solarium or the sitting room next to the Lincoln Bedroom - and which newspapers they would like to read in the morning. Most guests receive a pass to roam the White House’s residential quarters. Almost every guest with whom the Center for Public Integrity spoke said that spending the night in the White House was an honor.

It is important to note that not all of the overnight guests at the White House are contributors or fund-raisers. Ann Lewis, the Clinton campaign’s deputy manager and director of communications, sent a letter to Brinkley in which she pointed out that many others have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, including “the cook from Clinton’s old governor’s mansion in Little Rock, a theology student with his wife and two children, and an old friend who is not well, and the president’s pastor and his wife, and none of them paid as much as a dime,” Brinkley said on the following week’s program. Other overnight guests have included former President George Bush; former President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter; Leah Rabin, the widow of Yitzak Rabin, the late Israeli Prime Minister; former Texas Governor Ann Richards; and Lee Iacocca, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Chrysler Corporation.

The Democratic fat cats who’ve spent the night at the White House include Steven Grossman, the president of Massachusetts Envelope Company, and his wife, Barbara. They attended a state dinner for the president of Brazil in April 1995 and, later that evening, retired to the historic Queen’s Bedroom. Steven Grossman told the Center that it was ‘a memorable evening’ and that he was ‘honored’ to have been invited to the White House. When asked what he thought about David Brinkley’s report on sleepovers at the White House for substantial contributions to the Democratic Party, Grossman replied, “I have no comment.”

The Grossmans have contributed at least $400,000 to the Democratic Party and to Clinton since 1991. In 1994, Clinton appointed Barbara Grossman, who is a professor of theater at Tufts University, to the National Council for the Arts. Steven Grossman is the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and has been a managing trustee of the DNC. Grossman, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told the Center for Public Integrity that he has “a working relationship” with President Clinton that goes back many years.

Another Democratic contributor whom President Clinton invited to spend the night at the White House was Lew Wasserman, the former chairman of MCA Inc., an entertainment conglomerate. Although Wasserman has spent the night in the White House at the invitation of various presidents, his clout within the Democratic Party has given him special access to Democratic presidents.

In the late 1970s, the late John White, then the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, informed Wasserman that the Democratic Party might have to vacate its Washington headquarters because of a financial short-fall brought on by the multimillion-dollar debt from the 1968 presidential campaign. Wasserman proceeded to take out his checkbook and write a substantial check that kept the DNC offices open, White told the Center in a 1993 interview.

What did Wasserman seek in return? Not anything, really, White told the Center. But there was one occasion, he recalled, when Wasserman was coming to Washington and couldn’t find a hotel room. He called White, who telephoned the owner of Washington’s expensive Madison Hotel, imploring him to accommodate Mr. Wasserman. Unfortunately, no room was available. White smiled proudly and recalled that he finally found overnight lodging for the wealthy Hollywood mogul - at the White House, in the Lincoln Bedroom. This favor for Wasserman, White said, was “just a small thing.”

Wasserman and his wife, Edie, have spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom at least twice during the Clinton presidency and have contributed at least $450,000 to Clinton and the Democratic Party since 1991. He has also contributed to Clinton’s Legal Expense Trust, established by the President and Mrs. Clinton to help pay for their mounting legal bills from the Whitewater investigation and the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. In 1992, Wasserman invited 100 of his friends to attend a fund-raiser for Clinton and the Democratic Party sponsored by the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee. The minimum price of admission: $5,000. In June 1996, Wasserman hosted a fund-raiser that raised more than $1 million for the Democratic Party. Over the years, Wasserman has contributed more than $1 million to the Democrats. He declined the Center’s request for an interview.

This Public i report, written by Margaret Ebrahim, won the 1996 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Newsletter Journalism. The report profiles 75 fund-raisers/donors who had stayed overnight in the Clinton White House and highlights the exposure of the ‘Lincoln Bedroom’ story. (1996)

Toxic Deception

How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Threatens Your Health

By Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and the Center for Public Integrity
(Common Courage Press, 1999)

Toxic Deception shows how the industry uses campaign contributions, junkets, job offers, ‘scorched-earth’ courtroom strategies, misleading advertising and multimillion-dollar public relations campaigns to keep their products on the market no matter how great the potential dangers.

Toxic Deception is the result of a three-year investigation into the federal government’s regulation of toxic chemicals.

The authors used tens of thousands of pages of once-secret government and industry documents, and conducted more than 202 interviews in the creation of this book.

Now in its second edition, Toxic Deception contains an afterword written in December, 1998.

“It’s the story of the triumph of a special interest over the public interest.”

–Bob Herbert,
The New York Times,
February 17, 1997

The Buying of the President 1996


(From the Center’s press release for The Buying of the President by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, published by Avon Books)

The Buying of the President, by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, and published and distributed nationwide by Avon Books, is a comprehensive, investigative study about the major 1996 presidential candidates. Veteran political analyst and author Kevin Phillips, who wrote the Foreword to The Buying of the President, calls this book “an unprecedented compilation of numbers, analyses and revelations.” Each candidate chapter includes a “Top Ten Career Patrons” list, identifying those specific interests which have most generously contributed to these politicians over the years. The “Top 10” lists and other information were culled from thousands of Federal Election Commission records, Center for Responsive Politics data, financial disclosure forms, state election and other records dating back to the Seventies, when most of the current crop of candidates began their careers.

The Buying of the President—the 18th investigative study produced by the Center for Public Integrity—was released at a news conference on Thursday, January 11, at 9:15 a.m. in the Main Lounge of the National Press Club.

No one has ever systematically examined the financial relationships of America’s major presidential candidates in a single volume, and such a book has never been available before the primaries. Over the years, the impolite issue of just how much cold, hard cash it takes to capture the White House—where the money comes from, and what the donors seek in return—has been largely unaddressed.

“Most elected officials would rather undergo root canal surgery than discuss the special interests behind their candidacies,” said Charles Lewis, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan “watchdog” research group in Washington.

“We think the American people, before the election, should have all the relevant information about the candidates—including the price of acquiring power and what has been sold in the process.”

The Center’s year-long investigation involved more than a dozen researchers and one hundred undergraduate and graduate students from American University and the University of Maryland. Besides the secondary and primary sources of information reviewed, hundreds of interviews were conducted.

Along with the book, the Center is releasing detailed financial public information about all of the candidates on its Internet web site, including: assets, trips and other personal financial data about the major candidates; individual donors to Bill Clinton’s Arkansas gubernatorial campaigns since 1984; Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s overseas trips, replete with dates, campaign contributions and other information; and, based on our research, “Questions for the Candidates.”

For further information, contact the Center for Public Integrity at 202-466-1300.

Power & Money in Indiana

Over the years, there has been considerable scrutiny and discussion of Congressional elections and how they are financed. With the post-Watergate “good government” reforms such as the creation of the Federal Election Commission and limitations set on individual contributions to federal candidates, for example, the American people have been able to get a better idea of which forces fund campaigns and why.

Nonetheless, most of the discussion about the corrosive effects of “money and politics” has been at the national level, and Americans across the country need to understand how they personally are affected when special interest resources have flooded the decision-making process.

There are increasing indications that many of our state legislatures are rampantly corrupt. It is not just the widely-publicized FBI sting operations in which dozens of state legislators have been caught taking money on videotape in such states as South Carolina and Arizona over the years. It is the systemic nature of the state legislative process, and the importance of money to any of the legislation which is passed, which is truly disconcerting.

In order to examine how the flow of special-interest money to a state legislature could adversely affect that state’s citizens, the Center has spent the last three years amassing several databases taken from Indiana public records housed with the Indiana state election board, secretary of state’s office, and office of legislative services. As a result, more than 46,000 contributions to state legislature candidates and political party committees are available in database formats. These databases are now able to be searched and downloaded from this site for all citizens, in hopes of educating the public about which special interests are the strongest supporters of the elected officials representing the citizens of Indiana.

Power & Money in Illinois

As federal taxpayer money increasingly shifts from Washington to the states as part of “devolution,” and as Americans continue to be concerned and frustrated by the corruption of politics at all levels, it is crucial that the public have a greater understanding of its state legislatures and how they actually work. More than ever before, citizens need to know the specific influences of money on the decision-making processes in their respective states. Too frequently, public information about campaign money at the state level is available but practically inaccessible, making the concept of “disclosure” lofty but illusory.

The Center invited thirteen news organizations to be part of a statewide consortium to effectively investigate and disseminate important information on money in Illinois politics. With the guidance and generous support of Kent Redfield at the University of Illinois-Springfield’s Illinois Legislative Studies Center, Center researchers were able to disseminate an enhanced version of the Illinois State Board of Elections contributions database and additional databases created from thousands of other state records. These databases were used as a starting point for investigative reporting on the Illinois General Assembly.

The Center is pleased to announce that these databases will be made available to the public free of charge. Two groups have generously offered their services in providing the public with access to these databases at their website: www.campaignfinance.org and www.crp.org.

We would like to thank the Joyce Foundation for its support of this project.

Please email comments/questions to: states@publicintegrity.org

Unreasonable Risk

The Politics of Pesticides

A comprehensive study that examines how Congress and the EPA regulate the pesticide industry and its products, including those commonly used inside the home and on the lawn.

Unreasonable Risk was released on June 30, 1998.

In the Unlikely Event…

The Politics of Airline Safety

The Center for Public Integrity announces the results of a major investigative study of how Congress has responded to a host of airline-safety issues. Although the United States has the safest commercial airline system in the world, each year there are preventable deaths and injuries from air travel. It is the responsibility of the federal government—Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Transportation Safety Board - to protect the public safety in the skies.

Among other things, the report contains new airline-safety revelations gleaned from federal records and specific campaign-contribution data about Members of Congress.

“When it comes to airline safety, Congress is more responsive to the economic interests of the airline industry than to the broad public interest,” Charles Lewis, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, said. “And for the flying public, that means, simply, that the skies aren’t as safe as they ought to be.”

This is the second of four “Congress and the People” studies to be released by the Center in 1998. More than a dozen researchers, writers, and editors conducted scores of interviews and reviewed tens of thousands of pages of campaign-finance data, records of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board, House and Senate lobbying and financial disclosure reports, and congressional hearing transcripts.

In the Unlikely Event… was released on May 14, 1998.

(Almost) Anything Goes

What’s stopping lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly from proposing and voting on measures that could boost their own incomes? Nothing, the Center’s investigation shows.

Dozens of Illinois lawmakers routinely propose and vote on legislative measures that could boost their own incomes, a major investigation by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity shows.

The Center’s examination of the financial-disclosure forms filed by all 178 members of the Illinois General Assembly, augmented by interviews with scores of lawmakers and a review of thousands of bills and amendments, shows that the current system of disclosure doesn’t adequately flag potential conflicts between a legislator’s official duties and his or her personal financial interests.

And because no one enforces the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act, the Center found, legislators can - and do - ignore it with impunity. The law is so ridden with loopholes, in fact, that it leaves the entire system institutionally suspect when it comes to conflicts of interest.

Seven of the eight lawmakers who have served as directors or officers of banks in the state, for example, have sponsored legislation affecting commercial banks and banking. And seven of the twelve lawmakers with financial interests in farms or farm-related businesses sponsored legislation that could affect those interests.

The “ethical principles for legislators” outlined in the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act say: “When feasible, and taking into account that legislative service is part-time, a legislator should avoid accepting or retaining an economic opportunity which presents a substantial threat to his independence of judgment…. [W]hen a legislator must take official action on a legislative matter to which he has a conflict situation created by a personal, family, or client legislative interest, he should consider the possibility of eliminating the interest creating the conflict situation. If that is not feasible, he should consider the possibility of abstaining from such official action.” But these principles, the law says, are “intended only as guides to legislator conduct, and not as rules meant to be enforced by disciplinary action.” Consequently, lawmakers routinely ignore them.

State Representative Ron Stephens, a Republican from Troy, is a pharmacist who, according to his ethics statement, has financial interests in at least three pharmacies (KY Four, Prescription Plus, and Timmerman & Associates). Stephens has introduced legislation that would allow nurse practitioners to write prescriptions. State Senator Frank Watson, a Republican from Greenville, is the president of Watson’s Drug Store. Last year he introduced legislation that, since its enactment, has allowed therapeutically certified optometrists and podiatrists to write prescriptions.

State Senator Kirk Dillard, a Republican from Hinsdale, is a partner in the Chicago firm of Lord, Bissell & Brook, where his specialty has been defending companies from product-liability lawsuits. Dillard told the Center that he doesn’t do trial work anymore but “provides product liability counseling to manufacturers.” Dillard, a vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has sponsored legislation that seeks to bar plaintiffs in product liability actions from using a “manufacturer’s product safety analysis or review” against the manufacturer.

“We in Illinois have a part-time citizen legislature,” Dillard told the Center. “Farmers sit on the agriculture committee, teachers sit on the education committee. I don’t practice this type of law anymore, but I think that part of my experiences 10 or 12 years ago ought to be part of the full fabric of society. I don’t want a bunch of housewives serving in the General Assembly.”

In some cases it is all but impossible even to figure out what, exactly, lawmakers do for a living. Take State Senator John J. Cullerton, a Democrat from Chicago, who lists an interest in “PJ & BJ,” a partnership, on his Statement of Economic Interests. Cullerton told the Center in a letter that the purpose of PJ & BJ is “to assist Illinois businesses on general financial procedures,” but in a subsequent telephone interview he said that the partnership has been dissolved and that he claimed a $46 loss from his activities on his income tax return in 1996. Cullerton, who is a part owner of Illinois Public Telephone, Inc., a public pay-phone provider regulated by the Illinois Commerce Commission, sponsored S.B. 996, the “Telecommunications Municipal Infrastructure Maintenance Fee Act.” He told the Center that this legislation in no way would have affected his company. Asked how his constituents or journalists could know that, he replied: “I don’t think you’d know from looking at the forms. I think you’d just kind of have to take it on faith.”

The personal financial interests of many lawmakers neatly intersect their committee assignments. Democrat Charles Morrow III of Chicago, for example, is vice chairman of the House Public Utility Committee and a member of the Electric Utility Deregulation Committee. Morrow, who reported no outside employment on his Statement of Economic Interests, owns stock in Peoples Gas Light & Coke Company, a Chicago-based utility, but the ethics act does not require him to disclose how much stock he owns. Morrow did not respond to the Center’s inquiries.

Robert Biggins, a Republican from Elmhurst, sits on the House Financial Institutions Committee. He was a director of Suburban Illinois Bancorp until September 1997 as well as a stockholder in the company. Todd Sieben, a Republican from Geneseo, chairs the Senate Agriculture and Conservation Committee. He is co-owner of Sieben Hybrids Inc., a seed-corn concern. John Jones, a Republican from Mt. Vernon, has been a member of the House Transportation and Motor Vehicles Committee since 1995. He owned Thunder Trucking, Inc., a company that he sold last year.

“The usual conclusion of groups studying Illinois is that it is the worst in the nation among states when it comes to ethics statements,” Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who twice ran for Congress, told the Center. “No one has ever gone to jail for an ethics statement, and no one has ever been thrown out of office because of their ethics statement.”

Sins of Omission?

Some legislators simply ignore the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act; others seem to take offense at any questions about the forms they file.
At least four of the 54 lawmakers who did not disclose any information on their Statements of Economic Interests for 1996 in fact had interests that they should have disclosed. State Representative Mike Bost, a Republican from Murphysboro, for example, did not disclose his ownership (with his wife) of White House Beauty Salon. In the past, Bost told the Center, he has recused himself from votes affecting the cosmetology industry. Shirley Jones, a Democrat from Chicago, failed to disclose that she worked in Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office until July 1996. Beth Wait, an aide to State Senator Dave Syverson, a Republican from Rockford, told the Center that Syverson was involved in “a full-service independent insurance company.” Yet no such firm was listed on Syverson’s form, and Syverson refused to give the Center the name of the company.

State Representative N. Duane Noland, a Republican from Blue Mound, is a member of the Agriculture Committee, which he formerly chaired. He failed to disclose on his statement of economic interest that he is the owner of Noland Farms, Inc., a corn and soybean seed company in Macon and Christian counties. Noland said that he sees no conflict between his private business and his seat on the Agriculture Committee. “The reality is, Who better knows the industry?” he told the Center. “When 3 percent of the population are involved in production agriculture as farmers, what do you want - the suburban Chicago people on the Agriculture Committee?”

Under the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act, filers don’t need to list the locations of partnerships or other enterprises in which they are involved, rendering some of their business interests all but unidentifiable, nor do they generally need to disclose asset and employment information for their spouses and dependent children. And, in contrast to the financial disclosure requirements for Members of Congress and many federal employees, the Illinois law does not require state legislators to list a value range for assets they do own.

“It provides you with economic data, but it doesn’t allow you to follow up in terms of where that money may be coming from many times, and that, I think, is the principal failing of it,” David Stahr, the research director of Citizen Action of Illinois, told the Center. “We frankly don’t use them that much, mainly because there’s lack of specificity. There isn’t a lot of detail there.”

Stiffing the Public

Lawmakers are not required to file their statements of economic interest until May 1 of the succeeding year, making the information, in some cases, nearly a year and a half old.

“The big challenge in making disclosure effective is making it timely and accessible to voters,” State Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat from Chicago, told the Center. Obama, a lawyer, was one of the few lawmakers who disclosed information not required by the law - in his case, a list of his clients. “My assumption was that my constituents had the right to know who my law firm represented,” he told the Center.

House Speaker Michael Madigan, on the other hand, declined to identify his clients in response to a request from the Center. “It’s essentially a corporate law practice, and the bulk of the practice deals with real estate tax law,” Steve Brown, Madigan’s press secretary, told the Center. “Clients that I am aware of have no business with the state government, and occasionally when they have, he has abstained from voting and he generally abstains from any deliberations that deal with changes to real estate tax law.”

Madigan’s law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, does more real estate tax work than any other firm in Chicago’s Loop and has represented 13 of 49 major downtown buildings, according to a 1994 article in Chicago magazine. And Madigan’s clients have included two prominent real estate developers who were interested in obtaining gambling licenses from the state. Richard Stein, a developer of Chicago’s AT&T; Center and other office buildings, had been interested in a Waukegan riverboat license. (More recently Stein was a bidder on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus expansion.) And William Cellini, the majority owner of Argosy Gaming Company, which owns the Alton Belle riverboat in Alton, has used Madigan’s firm to handle real estate tax work for his apartment projects in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He was also a bidder in the UIC campus expansion.

House Minority Leader Lee Daniels, a Republican from Elmhurst, is a partner in the law firm of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd. Daniels also declined to identify his clients.

Many of the lawyer-lawmakers contacted by the Center, including Madigan, asserted that identities of their clients are protected under the attorney-client privilege. “I don’t think an attorney should be criticized for not revealing who his or her clients are simply because the clients may not want that,” State Representative Dale Righter, a lawyer with the firm of Shick & Topella, told the Center.

But Steven Lubet, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law and a legal ethics expert, told the Center that “the general rule is that the identity of one’s client is not protected by attorney-client privilege.” And State Senator Barack Obama added: “Generally, what attorney-client privilege applies to is not the issue of revealing whether someone is being represented or not. It has to do with communications in the past between the attorney and the client. Certainly a utility company or a bank or insurance company should not be embarrassed that they have counsel.”

State Representative Thomas Johnson, a lawyer, told the Center that he is on leave from the firm of Johnson, Westra, Broecker, Whittaker & Newitt. (A spokesman said that Johnson is “of counsel” to the firm.) “The key, in my opinion, is that the electorate ought to know where your money is coming from, how much you’re spending, and what you’re spending it on,” Johnson told the Center. “And they’ll make the decision quite honestly, whether you are beyond bounds or they don’t like what you’re doing or not.”

Representatives Robert Biggins (R-Elmhurst), Suzanne Deuchler (R-Aurora), Kurt Granberg (D-Carlyle), and State Senator Daniel Patrick Welch (D-Peru) fully disclosed their shareholdings, even though the law doesn’t require it; a handful of other lawmakers responded to the Center’s inquiries by providing ranges for their incomes and assets. A number of lawmakers told the Center that they’d left their employment after being elected, including State Representative Douglas P. Scott, a Democrat from Rockford, who said that he stopped practicing law when he took office.

As in the conflict-of-interest arena, Illinois is an anything-goes state when it comes to campaign contributions. It has no limits on direct corporate contributions, no limits on individual contributions, no limits on contributions from companies in regulated industries (utilities, for example), and no limits on contributions from political action committees. It also has no limits on campaign expenditures and no limits on the personal use of campaign funds. And Illinois, unlike other states, has no limits on campaign contributions while the legislature is in session.

Illinois, however, does have particularly demanding disclosure requirements for certain individuals - namely, anyone who seeks copies of the Statements of Economic Interests filed by lawmakers. The law requires that such persons fill out a “Request To Examine Statement of Economic Interest Form (Form No. I-109.1),” listing their name, occupation, address, and telephone number, as well as a reason for viewing the report.

The law mandates that a copy of this request form be sent to the lawmaker in question.

Center researcher Josh Dine contributed to this report.

Safety Last

The Politics of E.Coli and Other Food-Borne Killers

Thousands of Americans die each year—and millions more become sick—from the food they eat, and the number of disease-producing agents in the nation’s food supply is growing. Cases of poisoning from the E.coli O157:H7 bacterium alone have increased dramatically in the past decade, from virtually zero to approximately 20,000 a year. Government officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have described the current food-safety situation as an epidemic.

This study concludes that Congress has consistently ignored the growing threat to the public health posed by the slaughter and meatpacking industry, the producers who raise the animals, and the distributors, wholesalers, and retailers who sell the products to the public. Among its major findings: Over the past decade, the food industry poured more than $41 million into the campaign treasuries of Capitol Hill lawmakers and managed to kill every bill that has promised meaningful improvement.

Safety Last was released on February 26, 1998.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

News Release
Center for Public Integrity Wins Two Sigma Delta Chi Awards
(WASHINGTON, April 28, 2023) – The Center for Public Integrity won two 2022 Sigma Delta Chi awards given by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Special Report
Privatizing Water: What the European Commission Doesn’t Want You to Know
(WASHINGTON, April 7, 2023) – Leaked documents reveal that the European Union has asked 72 countries to open up their markets to private water companies. An exchange of e-mail reveals that these requests came after a period of intense cooperation and consultation between water companies and trade representatives of the European Commission, which is the executive body of the European Union, leading up to the most recent round of World Trade Organization negotiations designed to open up world markets for trade in services.

Special Report
The Big Pong Down Under
(ADELAIDE, Australia, Feb. 14, 2023) – Fifteen months after Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to a private consortium controlled by Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, which became known as “the big pong.” Read more in the final installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Hard Water: The Uphill Campaign to Privatize Canada’s Waterworks
(HAMILTON, Canada, Feb. 13, 2023 – Hamilton was the first privatized large water utility in Canada, a country where waterworks have been overwhelmingly a public affair – and where most people like it that way. The Hamilton experience was supposed to demonstrate an alternative, free-market model, supposed to change public opinion. It has, but not as expected. Read more in the ninth installment of “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Low Rates, Needed Repairs Lure ‘Big Water’ to Uncle Sam’s Plumbing
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2023) – Foreign private companies are gearing up to control a multibillion-dollar market to upgrade the nation’s aging water system, after spending millions of dollars over the last six years to sway congressional votes on privatization laws. Americans have the safest and cheapest public water systems in the world. But, as foreign companies flex their financial muscle, America’s drinking water may not be so cheap or public for long. Read more in the eighth installment of ICIJ’s global water series, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
A Tale of Two Cities
(BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Feb. 11, 2023) – Coastal Cartagena was the first of about 50 cities and towns to privatize its water in Colombia. The capital Bogotá bucked the privatization trend, refused World Bank money and transformed its public utility into the most successful in Colombia. Read more in the seventh installment of ICIJ’s series on global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Water and Politics in the Fall of Suharto
(JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 10, 2023) – The privatization of Jakarta’s water is the story of powerful multinationals that deftly used the World Bank and a compliant dictatorship to grab control of a major city’s waterworks. Read more in the sixth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Loaves, Fishes and Dirty Dishes: Manila’s Privatized Water Can’t Handle the Pressure
(MANILA, Philippines, Feb. 7, 2023) – Politically connected families and private companies split Manila in two to share turf. At first, the two companies brought miracles by bringing running water to thousands of poor people who never had it. Now the miracle has faded as one company bails out, leaving behind enormous debts. Read more in the fifth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
The ‘Aguas’ Tango: Cashing In On Buenos Aires’ Privatization
(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Feb. 6, 2023) – Global water giants partnered to run a water system in the Argentine capital that the World Bank touted as a model of privatization. Investors extracted millions in profits. But now the model is crumbling under the weight of mounting costs. Read more in the fourth installment of “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Metered to Death: How a Water Experiment Caused Riots and a Cholera Epidemic
(JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Feb. 5, 2023) – The biggest problem in this country ravaged by AIDS, tuberculosis and malnourishment, is water. Few can afford it. But with World Bank blessing, the government is trying to end water subsidies, forcing millions of South Africans to seek their water from polluted rivers and lakes. The result: one of the largest outbreaks of cholera. Read more in the third installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Water and Power: The French Connection
(PARIS, Feb. 4, 2023) – France could be described as the birthplace of modern water privatization. Private companies have run French waterworks to one degree or another since the Napoleonic era. But its top water companies have been rocked by scandals and allegations of influence-peddling. Read more in the second installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
The Water Barons: A Handful of Corporations Seek to Privatize the World’s Water
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2023) – The privatization of public water systems around the world, driven by a handful of European corporations and the World Bank, is dramatically increasing despite sometimes tragic results, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. The report, by the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, shows that the world’s three largest private water utility companies have since 1990 expanded into nearly every region of the world, raising concerns that a few private companies could soon control a large chunk of the world’s most vital resource.

News Release
Series on Immigrant Labor Abuses Wins Investigative Prize
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022) – A five-part series by Newsday reporter Thomas Maier documenting abuses suffered by immigrants in American workplaces has won the 2022 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

Special Report
The Merchant of Death
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2022) – Victor Bout’s air cargo companies shipped vegetables and crayfish from South Africa to Europe, transported United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan to East Timor, and reportedly assisted the logistics of Operation Restore Hope, the U.S.-led military famine relief effort in Somalia in 1993. “That was the staple stuff,” a former associate, said. “The dodgy flights were all extras.” Those “dodgy flights” included shipping arms that fueled Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, and earned Bout his reputation as the “merchant of death.” Read more in the 11th and final part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2022) – It was not until weeks after Italian police arrested Leonid Minin in a Milan hotel room on charges of cocaine possession that they learned that the man with the expensive drug habit was under investigation in five countries for various crimes. It would take even longer to piece together the documents that he carried with him, papers that would tell the story of his illegal arms trading, including selling weapons to the most brutal of Africa’s rebel insurgencies, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. Read more in the tenth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Field Marshal
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2022) – The long and storied career of Jacques Monsieur, a Belgian nicknamed “the field marshal” who has been active in arms trading since the 1980s, illustrates that often arms dealers who are ostensibly profit-seeking freelancers actually serve the interests of Western intelligence services and corporate elites. They violate U.N. arms embargoes with the implicit – sometimes explicit – approval of government officials, and attempt to tip the balance in armed conflicts for the benefit of business interests. Read the ninth part of “Making a Killing: The Business of War.”

Special Report
The Influence Peddlers
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2022) – Arcadi Gaydamak claims to be among the five richest men in Israel, which would put him in the billionaire category. He owes this vast fortune, he said, to shrewd speculation on the Russian stock market, particularly oil stocks, and not to the profits of war. Gaydamak insists he was never an arms dealer, rather a “financier of deals.” The financier, who seldom signs anything and operates through labyrinthine shell companies, epitomizes the business of war in the post-Cold War era: an entrepreneur with global ties to arms smuggling, resource exploitation and private military companies. Read the eighth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Adventure Capitalist
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2022) – Niko Shefer leaned forward and explained the competitive advantage small entrepreneurs enjoy over corporate multinationals when doing business in war-ravaged countries like Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I move with cash. I can buy the president a Mercedes 600. How can a normal company justify that? How do they explain that to the shareholders? I do not need board meetings. I am the board,” said Shefer, one of a new breed of adventurers and opportunists who have the acumen and the ruthlessness to profit from Africa’s war zones. Read more in the seventh part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Conflict Diamonds are Forever
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2022) – The sudden renaissance of diamond mining and trading around Kimberley, South Africa – the birthplace of that nation’s diamond industry – has fed rumors in the close-knit international diamond community that the area has become a major laundering center for Africa’s “conflict diamonds” – stones from areas of Africa wracked by civil war, where combatants use their control of the mines to fund arms purchases for their fight. Poor controls in the international diamond industry are undercutting attempts to clamp down on the trade in conflict diamonds that allegedly fund terrorist organizations. Read the sixth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Curious Bonds of Oil Diplomacy
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2022) – In April 2021, a representative from MPRI – a Viriginia-based private military company – met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea, an African nation with a population of less than 5 million, was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Yet the Kuwait of Africa is plagued by corruption, poverty, and a regime that regularly engages in human rights abuses. Read the fifth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Greasing the Skids of Corruption
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2022) – On July 15, 2020, the Marathon Oil Company sent $13.7 million to an account in the English isle of Jersey. The owner of the Jersey account was Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, and the sum represented one-third of a bonus that the Texas-based company agreed to pay the Angolan government for rights to pump the country’s offshore oil reserves. That same day, Sonangol transferred an identical sum of money out of Jersey to another Sonangol account in an unknown location. Over the course of that summer, large sums of money traveled from the Jersey account to, among others, a private security company owned by a former Angolan minister, a charitable foundation run by the Angolan president, and a private Angolan bank that counts an alleged arms dealer among its shareholders. Read the fourth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Marketing the New ‘Dogs of War’
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2022) – In October 1996, three ex-soldiers met for lunch in an Italian restaurant just off King’s Road in Chelsea, one of London’s toniest districts. They discussed the fortunes of a company with which they were all associated called Executive Outcomes, whose business was intervening in Africa’s wars – for a price. “It was becoming clear that EO … carried a lot of political baggage,” Tim Spicer, one of the diners who was perhaps Britain’s best-known mercenary, later observed. His companions suggested a plan to rebrand, restyle and relaunch the “dogs of war.” Read the third part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Making a Killing: The Business of War
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 202) – Amid the global military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments have turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf. A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has identified at least 90 such companies worldwide. The ICIJ investigation also uncovered a small group of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East that have profited from war commerce. Read more in ICIJ’s 11-part series.

Letter from London
A History Lesson on Iraq
(LONDON, Aug. 9, 2022) – Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a “regime change”, a Western “settlement” on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes.

Commentary
Journalism and Patriotism
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2022) – In a democratic society, journalists exercise the highest form of citizenship by monitoring events in the community and making the public aware of them and their import; by skeptically examining the behavior of people and institutions of power; by encouraging and informing forums for public debate, writes Bill Kovach.

Commentary
Enhance Democracy in Colombia
(BOSTON, July 29, 2022) – The elected Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, recently visited the United States and Europe and declared that his “get tough” campaign for a sustainable peace would be waged with “absolute respect for human rights.” Meantime in Colombia, Fernando Londoño – his future interior and justice minister – repeated that the new administration would push for a constitutional amendment to allow it to declare a state of siege.

Commentary
So Tim’s Death Will Not Have Been in Vain
(AUSTIN, Texas, July 26, 2022) – Brazilian investigative journalist Tim Lopes was assassinated last month by drug traffickers, while he was secretly filming in a territory controlled by one of the gangs. The death of Lopes in the line of duty will not have been in vain if, as a result, Brazilian society commits itself to root out the cancer of drug trafficking and organized crime, writes Rosental Calmon Alves.

ICIJ Investigations
War On Error: Live Pictures Taken by U.S. Planes Were Freely Available
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies.

ICIJ Member Works
Jacques Monsieur Arrested in Turkey
(BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 14, 2022) – A Belgian man alleged to be one of Europe’s biggest gunrunners - and who has threatened to reveal secrets about the involvement of intelligence agencies and oil corporations in his illicit trade - has been arrested in Turkey.

ICIJ Member Works
Smoker awarded $700,000 after evidence was destroyed
(MELBOURNE, Australia, April 25, 2022) – In a landmark ruling, the Victorian Supreme Court found that Australia’s biggest tobacco company destroyed thousands of internal documents to deliberately subvert court processes and to deny a lung cancer patient a fair trial, writes ICIJ’s Australian member William Birnbauer.

ICIJ Investigations
Kuchma Approved Sale of Weapons System to Iraq
(WASHINGTON, Apr. 15, 2022) – Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved of the sale, and the smuggling, to Iraq of a high-tech radar system capable of detecting aircraft – even those using stealth technology – and targeting them with anti-aircraft missiles. Kuchma’s authorization of the sale, which violates U.N. sanctions, was recorded on tape.

ICIJ Obituary
ICIJ Member Succumbs to Fatal Disease Contracted While Reporting
(WASHINGTON, July 11, 2022) – Robert Friedman, an ICIJ member and an award-winning American investigative reporter, dies after a long illness contracted while investigating a story in India.

Investigative Reports

ICIJ extends globally the Center’s style of “watchdog journalism” in the public interest by investigating issues that cross national borders. Through the release of ICIJ’s own detailed, well-documented investigations, and by showcasing the work of individual member-journalists, ICIJ supports international investigative reporting and the idea that an informed populace is an empowered one.

ICIJ Investigations

Special Report
The Big Pong Down Under
(ADELAIDE, Australia, Feb. 14, 2023) – Fifteen months after Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to a private consortium controlled by Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, which became known as “the big pong.” Read more in the final installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Hard Water: The Uphill Campaign to Privatize Canada’s Waterworks
(HAMILTON, Canada, Feb. 13, 2023) – Hamilton was the first privatized large water utility in Canada, a country where waterworks have been overwhelmingly a public affair – and where most people like it that way. The Hamilton experience was supposed to demonstrate an alternative, free-market model, supposed to change public opinion. It has, but not as expected. Read more in the ninth installment of “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Low Rates, Needed Repairs Lure ‘Big Water’ to Uncle Sam’s Plumbing
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2023) – Foreign private companies are gearing up to control a multibillion-dollar market to upgrade the nation’s aging water system, after spending millions of dollars over the last six years to sway congressional votes on privatization laws. Americans have the safest and cheapest public water systems in the world. But, as foreign companies flex their financial muscle, America’s drinking water may not be so cheap or public for long. Read more in the eighth installment of ICIJ’s global water series, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
A Tale of Two Cities
(BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Feb. 11, 2023) – Coastal Cartagena was the first of about 50 cities and towns to privatize its water in Colombia. The capital Bogotá bucked the privatization trend, refused World Bank money and transformed its public utility into the most successful in Colombia. Read more in the seventh installment of ICIJ’s series on global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Water and Politics in the Fall of Suharto
(JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 10, 2023) – The privatization of Jakarta’s water is the story of powerful multinationals that deftly used the World Bank and a compliant dictatorship to grab control of a major city’s waterworks. Read more in the sixth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Loaves, Fishes and Dirty Dishes: Manila’s Privatized Water Can’t Handle the Pressure
(MANILA, Philippines, Feb. 7, 2023) – Politically connected families and private companies split Manila in two to share turf. At first, the two companies brought miracles by bringing running water to thousands of poor people who never had it. Now the miracle has faded as one company bails out, leaving behind enormous debts. Read more in the fifth installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
The ‘Aguas’ Tango: Cashing In On Buenos Aires’ Privatization
(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Feb. 6, 2023) – Global water giants partnered to run a water system in the Argentine capital that the World Bank touted as a model of privatization. Investors extracted millions in profits. But now the model is crumbling under the weight of mounting costs. Read more in the fourth installment of “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Metered to Death: How a Water Experiment Caused Riots and a Cholera Epidemic
(JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Feb. 5, 2023) – The biggest problem in this country ravaged by AIDS, tuberculosis and malnourishment, is water. Few can afford it. But with World Bank blessing, the government is trying to end water subsidies, forcing millions of South Africans to seek their water from polluted rivers and lakes. The result: one of the largest outbreaks of cholera. Read more in the third installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
Water and Power: The French Connection
(PARIS, Feb. 4, 2023) – France could be described as the birthplace of modern water privatization. Private companies have run French waterworks to one degree or another since the Napoleonic era. But its top water companies have been rocked by scandals and allegations of influence-peddling. Read more in the second installment of ICIJ’s 10-part series into global water privatization, “The Water Barons.”

Special Report
The Water Barons: A Handful of Corporations Seek to Privatize the World’s Water
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2023) – The privatization of public water systems around the world, driven by a handful of European corporations and the World Bank, is dramatically increasing despite sometimes tragic results, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. The report, by the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, shows that the world’s three largest private water utility companies have since 1990 expanded into nearly every region of the world, raising concerns that a few private companies could soon control a large chunk of the world’s most vital resource.

Special Report
The Merchant of Death
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2022) – Victor Bout’s air cargo companies shipped vegetables and crayfish from South Africa to Europe, transported United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan to East Timor, and reportedly assisted the logistics of Operation Restore Hope, the U.S.-led military famine relief effort in Somalia in 1993. “That was the staple stuff,” a former associate, said. “The dodgy flights were all extras.” Those “dodgy flights” included shipping arms that fueled Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, and earned Bout his reputation as the “merchant of death.” Read more in the 11th and final part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2022) – It was not until weeks after Italian police arrested Leonid Minin in a Milan hotel room on charges of cocaine possession that they learned that the man with the expensive drug habit was under investigation in five countries for various crimes. It would take even longer to piece together the documents that he carried with him, papers that would tell the story of his illegal arms trading, including selling weapons to the most brutal of Africa’s rebel insurgencies, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. Read more in the tenth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Field Marshal
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2022) – The long and storied career of Jacques Monsieur, a Belgian nicknamed “the field marshal” who has been active in arms trading since the 1980s, illustrates that often arms dealers who are ostensibly profit-seeking freelancers actually serve the interests of Western intelligence services and corporate elites. They violate U.N. arms embargoes with the implicit – sometimes explicit – approval of government officials, and attempt to tip the balance in armed conflicts for the benefit of business interests. Read the ninth part of “Making a Killing: The Business of War.”

Special Report
The Influence Peddlers
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2022) – Arcadi Gaydamak claims to be among the five richest men in Israel, which would put him in the billionaire category. He owes this vast fortune, he said, to shrewd speculation on the Russian stock market, particularly oil stocks, and not to the profits of war. Gaydamak insists he was never an arms dealer, rather a “financier of deals.” The financier, who seldom signs anything and operates through labyrinthine shell companies, epitomizes the business of war in the post-Cold War era: an entrepreneur with global ties to arms smuggling, resource exploitation and private military companies. Read the eighth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Adventure Capitalist
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2022) – Niko Shefer leaned forward and explained the competitive advantage small entrepreneurs enjoy over corporate multinationals when doing business in war-ravaged countries like Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I move with cash. I can buy the president a Mercedes 600. How can a normal company justify that? How do they explain that to the shareholders? I do not need board meetings. I am the board,” said Shefer, one of a new breed of adventurers and opportunists who have the acumen and the ruthlessness to profit from Africa’s war zones. Read more in the seventh part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Conflict Diamonds are Forever
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2022) – The sudden renaissance of diamond mining and trading around Kimberley, South Africa – the birthplace of that nation’s diamond industry – has fed rumors in the close-knit international diamond community that the area has become a major laundering center for Africa’s “conflict diamonds” – stones from areas of Africa wracked by civil war, where combatants use their control of the mines to fund arms purchases for their fight. Poor controls in the international diamond industry are undercutting attempts to clamp down on the trade in conflict diamonds that allegedly fund terrorist organizations. Read the sixth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
The Curious Bonds of Oil Diplomacy
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2022) – In April 2021, a representative from MPRI – a Viriginia-based private military company – met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea, an African nation with a population of less than 5 million, was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Yet the Kuwait of Africa is plagued by corruption, poverty, and a regime that regularly engages in human rights abuses. Read the fifth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Greasing the Skids of Corruption
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2022) – On July 15, 2020, the Marathon Oil Company sent $13.7 million to an account in the English isle of Jersey. The owner of the Jersey account was Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, and the sum represented one-third of a bonus that the Texas-based company agreed to pay the Angolan government for rights to pump the country’s offshore oil reserves. That same day, Sonangol transferred an identical sum of money out of Jersey to another Sonangol account in an unknown location. Over the course of that summer, large sums of money traveled from the Jersey account to, among others, a private security company owned by a former Angolan minister, a charitable foundation run by the Angolan president, and a private Angolan bank that counts an alleged arms dealer among its shareholders. Read the fourth part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Marketing the New ‘Dogs of War’
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2022) – In October 1996, three ex-soldiers met for lunch in an Italian restaurant just off King’s Road in Chelsea, one of London’s toniest districts. They discussed the fortunes of a company with which they were all associated called Executive Outcomes, whose business was intervening in Africa’s wars – for a price. “It was becoming clear that EO … carried a lot of political baggage,” Tim Spicer, one of the diners who was perhaps Britain’s best-known mercenary, later observed. His companions suggested a plan to rebrand, restyle and relaunch the “dogs of war.” Read the third part of Making a Killing: The Business of War.

Special Report
Making a Killing: The Business of War
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2022) – Amid the global military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments have turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf. A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has identified at least 90 such companies worldwide. The ICIJ investigation also uncovered a small group of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East that have profited from war commerce. Read more in ICIJ’s 11-part series.

Special Report
War On Error: Live Pictures Taken by U.S. Planes Were Freely Available
(LONDON, June 12, 2022) – The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies.

Special Report
Kuchma Approved Sale of Weapons System to Iraq
(WASHINGTON, Apr. 15, 2022) – Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved of the sale, and the smuggling, to Iraq of a high-tech radar system capable of detecting aircraft – even those using stealth technology – and targeting them with anti-aircraft missiles. Kuchma’s authorization of the sale, which violates U.N. sanctions, was recorded on tape.

Special Report
Victor Bout Denies Involvement in Arms Traffic
(WASHINGTON, March 4, 2022) – Victor Bout, accused by the United Nations of fueling Africa’s bloodiest wars and suspected of selling arms to the Taliban, has issued a statement denying the charges against him, his companies, and his associates. The Center previously reported on Bout’s alleged role in the arms trade.

Special Report
EU Accuses U.S. Tobacco Companies of Trading With Iraq, Terrorists
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2022) – The European Union has alleged that U.S. tobacco companies have sold billions of cigarettes to Iraq, in violation of U.S. and international sanctions. The companies shipped the cigarettes through third countries and were aided by the PKK or Kurdish Workers Party, which the United States has labeled a terrorist group.

Special Report
Africa’s ‘Merchant of Death’ Sold Arms to the Taliban
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2022) – Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout, already exposed by the United Nations for his role in fueling some of Africa’s bloodiest wars, practiced his trade in another war-torn region. He sold millions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Special Report
White House Sought to Soften Anti-Terrorism Legislation in Support of Tobacco Companies
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2021) – As Congress rushed to pass a bill aimed at cracking down on terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, tobacco companies tried to insert language into the measure that would protect them from a spate of pending civil RICO lawsuits filed by foreign governments in U.S. courts. In their unsuccessful effort, the tobacco companies found an ally in the Bush administration, which pushed for the provision.

Special Report
Arrested Italian Cell Sheds Light On Bin Laden’s European Network
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2021) – A 100-page Italian investigative report, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, tells a stunning story of cooperation among suspected cells of alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden in Europe.

Special Report
U.S. Military Aid to Latin America Linked to Human Rights Abuses
(WASHINGTON, July 12, 2021) – U.S. anti-drug money spent on Latin America has been funneled through corrupt military, paramilitary and intelligence organizations and ends up violating basic human rights, a new Center for Public Integrity investigation shows. Versión en español

Special Report
Tobacco Companies Linked To Criminal Organizations In Lucrative Cigarette Smuggling
(WASHINGTON, March 3, 2021) – A new Center for Public Integrity report, by its International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, indicates that tobacco smuggling is increasingly dominated – often with the knowledge and consent of the tobacco companies – by a handful of criminal organizations that in some cases have links to organized crime.

Special Report
U.K. Considering Formal Investigation Into Cigarette Smuggling
(LONDON, June 15, 2020) – The British government is considering launching an in-depth investigation into “extremely serious” allegations of international tobacco smuggling by giant tobacco multinational BAT (British American Tobacco).

Special Report
Philip Morris Accused of Smuggling, Money-Laundering Conspiracy In Racketeering Lawsuit
(WASHINGTON, May 23, 2020) – Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco multinational, has engaged in smuggling and drug-money laundering for years in a scheme to avoid taxes and boost sales of its cigarettes, according to allegations in a new racketeering lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court.

Special Report
Global Reach of Tobacco Company’s Involvement in Cigarette Smuggling Exposed in Company Papers
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2020) – In its search to maintain and enlarge cigarette markets and corporate revenue, British American Tobacco – the world’s second largest tobacco multinational and parent company of Brown & Williamson – exploited a sophisticated network of smuggling routes throughout Asia.

Special Report
Major Tobacco Multinational Implicated In Cigarette Smuggling, Tax Evasion, Documents Show
(WASHINGTON, Jan 31, 2020) – British American Tobacco, the world’s second-largest multinational tobacco company, for decades secretly encouraged tax evasion and cigarette smuggling in a global effort to secure market share and lure generations of new smokers, internal corporate documents reveal.

News Report
How U.S. Policy on Marketing Tobacco Overseas Fell Through the Cracks in Malawi
The economically impoverished country of Malawi in southern Africa is an example of what fell through the cracks in U.S. tobacco policy abroad.

ICIJ Member Works

Special Report
Jacques Monsieur Arrested in Turkey
(BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 14, 2022) – A Belgian man alleged to be one of Europe’s biggest gunrunners - and who has threatened to reveal secrets about the involvement of intelligence agencies and oil corporations in his illicit trade - has been arrested in Turkey.

ICIJ Member Works
Smoker awarded $700,000 after evidence was destroyed
(MELBOURNE, Australia, April 25, 2022) – In a landmark ruling, the Victorian Supreme Court found that Australia’s biggest tobacco company destroyed thousands of internal documents to deliberately subvert court processes and to deny a lung cancer patient a fair trial, writes ICIJ’s Australian member William Birnbauer.

ICIJ Member Works
How Medical Technology is Changing Who We Are
(OTTAWA, Feb. 2, 2022) – As the public keeps on hearing, science and medicine continue to advance to such a degree that in the coming years people will be able to make decisions regarding cloning and gene manipulation. The possibilities seem endless but so are the controversies and accompanying ethical questions. In a six-part radio series for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ICIJ member Bob Carty examines the growing issues stemming from the advancement of medical technology.

ICIJ Member Works
Tobacco Firm Accused of Smuggling
(ORANJESTAD, Aruba, Feb. 2, 2022) – The American tobacco industry has smuggled billions of cigarettes through Aruba to Colombia and Venezuela by using a company in Aruba’s free trade zone as a cover, writes ICIJ’s Dutch member Joop Bouma.

ICIJ Member Works
Quiet burial of a secret agent
(DWELLINGUP, Australia, Feb. 1, 2022) – When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975, huge quantities of the dioxin-laden herbicide Agent Orange were sold to war surplus buyers. ICIJ member Jan Mayman went to Vietnam to find out how Agent Orange ended up in one small Australian community.

ICIJ Member Works
AFGHANISTAN: Inside the Taliban
(LAHORE, Pakistan, Oct. 18, 2021) – Defections from the Taliban should not be taken as a sign that the movement will crumble easily, even now that the U.S.-led war against it has begun, ICIJ member Ahmed Rashid writes.

ICIJ Member Works
How the plotters slipped U.S. net
(LONDON, Oct. 10, 2021) – Spy networks failed to detect email and satellite conversations used to plot the attack on the U.S. - and now America wants to know what went wrong, reports Duncan Campbell.

Special Report
Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist
(LAHORE, Pakistan, Sept. 13, 2021) – Osama Bin Laden was a young Saudi student when he became one of thousands recruited, with the CIA’s blessing, to fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin. In this excerpt from his book on the Taliban, veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid follows the man who helped make Afghanistan a haven for terrorists; the man many suspect is the culprit behind the worst act of terrorism in American history.

ICIJ Member Works
Clarke company faces new smuggling claims
(LONDON, Aug. 22, 2021) – Kenneth Clarke, currently embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious bid for the leadership of Britain’s Conservative Party, faces a major embarrassment through his boardroom connection with the cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco. New evidence from a whistleblower suggests that, during Clarke’s tenure as deputy chairman, the controversial firm has been using a Swiss subsidiary and bank account secretly to control a worldwide smuggling network.

Special Report
Australian Parliament Warned On Tobacco Smuggling-Crime Link
(WASHINGTON, April 11, 2021) – A Public i report on tobacco smuggling and organized crime has been introduced into the Australian Parliament, amid warnings that the issues raised should figure in a billion-dollar deal involving British American Tobacco and its national affiliate. In Italy, meanwhile, a parliamentary report has criticized Philip Morris for not doing enough to help authorities track cigarette smugglers linked to criminal organizations.

ICIJ Member Works
Fixing The Fixers
(NEW DELHI, India, Nov. 13, 2020) – Threats, inducements and plain old hard work get the names of ‘wicket’ players. Now for Act II.

Special Report
Impeached Philippine President Flaunts Extravagant Lifestyle
(MANILA, Philippines, Nov. 15, 2020) – Philippine President Joseph Estrada is fighting to stay in office after being impeached Nov. 13 on charges that he took illegal gambling kickbacks and siphoned off tobacco taxes. Grandly supporting four households, the former film star has flaunted an extravagant lifestyle.

ICIJ Member Works
The State of the President’s Finances : Can Estrada Explain His Wealth?
(MANILA, Philippines, July 23, 2020) – Philippine President Joseph Estrada says his life is an open book. He does not deny the complications of his private life-that he has several mistresses, and that he has sired children by them. The President, however, has not exactly been forthright about the financial aspects of his private life and the complex ethical issues-such as conflicts of interest-posed by the many and varied business involvements of his various families.

ICIJ Member Works
The Risks of U.S. Aid
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2020) – U.S. military assistance to Colombia is increasing, but U.S. law forbids aid to offenders of human rights. Now, a new report reveals connections between U.S. Green Berets and a military unit commanded by a Colombian Army colonel accused in a July 1997 massacre of 49 civilians.

ICIJ Member Works
Sri Lanka’s Endless War
(COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Jan. 12, 2020) – The 17-year separatist war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has intensified in recent months. The United States is becoming more attentive to the conflict, with the U.S. State Department designating the LTTE as one of 28 “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” for the second straight year.

ICIJ Member Works
Hier’s Higher Connections
(TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 1, 1999) – Controversy surrounds Rabbi Marvin Hier’s use of supporters of the Israeli right as leverage for his plan to build a museum on some of the most-valuable land in Jerusalem and the alleged political contributions to help smooth the process.

ICIJ Member Works
An Invitation to Launder Money
(HAMBURG, Germany, Nov. 8, 1999 and May 22, 2020) – The collaboration between the political, judicial, and banking systems in the Principality of Liechtenstein had unscrupulously allowed criminals from around the world to do business there, an investigation by Der Spiegel found. Outraged by the newsmagazine’s allegations, Liechtenstein sued Der Spiegel – the first time a country had sued a publication in German press history. Liechtenstein lost its case.

ICIJ Member Works
Afghanistan: Heart of Darkness
(LAHORE, Pakistan, Aug. 5, 1999) – As Afghanistan’s Taliban launch a new offensive against opposition forces, the threat which this Islamic regime poses to regional stability has gone unnoticed. Terrorists fighting the governments of virtually every Central Asian power find shelter with the Taliban. An equally dangerous by-product is the criminal economy supported by the Taliban, which spreads weapons and drugs throughout the region.

ICIJ Member Works
How Britain Eavesdropped on Dublin
(LONDON, July 16, 1999) – The British Ministry of Defense “Electronic Test Facility” tower stands isolated in a British Nuclear Fuels Limited site at Capenhurst, Cheshire. The tower was erected between two microwave radio towers carrying traffic to discreetly intercept international telephone calls of the Irish government, businessmen and those suspected of involvement with the IRA.

ICIJ Member Works
Dark Alliance Rules the High Seas
(JAKARTA, Indonesia, April 13, 1999) – The waters of Southeast Asia have a long history of piracy. But new technologies and lax law enforcement among regional governments have given rise to organized piracy syndicates, some operating out of an island near the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

ICIJ Member Works
Aitken, The Fixer and the Secret Multi-Million-Pound Arms Deals
(LONDON, March 14-15, 1999) – Jonathan Aitken, the British minister for defense procurement for John Major’s government, was implicated in bribery schemes involving his longtime friend and business partner, Said Ayas, a Lebanese national. Ayas had taken illegal payment from European, Japanese and American companies to ensure weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

ICIJ Member Works
A Long Ride on the Thunderbolt
(MELBOURNE, Australia, March 13, 1999) – Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Selwyn Leeks administered unmodified electro-convulsive therapy – shock therapy without anaesthetic or muscle relaxants – to children and young people at psychiatric hospitals in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

ICIJ Member Works
General as Bandit
(LAGOS, Nigeria, Aug. 24, 1998) Lt.-Gen. Jeremiah Timbut Useni, a top aide to Nigeria’s former dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, accumulated much wealth and property during his 41-year career in the Nigerian military, way beyond the means of a military officer. That all changed when Abacha died, and the new regime saw to it that most of Useni’s ill-gotten wealth was confiscated.

ICIJ Member Works
The Looting of Russia
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 3, 1998) – Some of the most powerful political figures in Moscow were involved in the pillaging of Russia’s national treasury, when tons of Russian diamonds, silver, gold, and jewelry were stolen in the mid-1990s. Unprecedented cooperation between U.S. and Russian law enforcement agencies exposed the scam. “The Looting of Russia” was a finalist for the 1999 ICIJ Award for International Investigative Reporting.

ICIJ Member Works
Starr Struck
(BOSTON, April 1998) – The Kenneth Starr who was assailed by the Clinton administration as an agent of right-wing conspirators is the same Kenneth Starr who was hailed in 1987 by journalists and media lawyers as a savior of investigative reporting. While tens of thousands of words have been written about Starr since he became independent counsel, almost none have reflected the prominent role he played in defending press rights as a federal judge.

ICIJ Member Works
From Russia for Love
(MELBOURNE, Australia, March 29-30, 1998) – An international criminal gang with links to the Russian mafia is luring Ukrainian women to work illegally as prostitutes in Australia’s brothels, with promises of big money and plenty of free time. But the women end up handing over most of their earnings, their passports, and most of their freedom.

ICIJ Member Works
“This War Can’t Go on Any Longer”
(BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 15, 22, 29, 1997) – Carlos Castaño, Colombia’s main paramilitary leader, says “the final onslaught” is underway. He speculates that peace talks are imminent and that the guerrilla groups will have to accept the presence of the private armed groups at the negotiating table.

ICIJ Member Works
Mapiripan: A Shortcut To Hell
(BOGOTA, Colombia, July 28 and Nov. 3, 1997) – A July 1997 paramilitary attack on the guerrilla stronghold of Mapiripan in the Colombia Plains Region resulted in a civilian massacre. Although the Colombian army received information on the presence of paramilitary groups in the region on July 14, it waited until July 21 to send in troops, after 25 of the townspeople had been torn limb from limb while still alive, according to witnesses.

In the News

Center for Public Integrity Wins Two Sigma Delta Chi Awards
(WASHINGTON, April 28, 2023) – The Center for Public Integrity won two 2022 Sigma Delta Chi awards given by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Series on Immigrant Labor Abuses Wins Investigative Prize
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022) – A five-part series by Newsday reporter Thomas Maier documenting abuses suffered by immigrants in American workplaces has won the 2022 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

A History Lesson on Iraq
(LONDON, Aug. 9, 2022) – Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a “regime change”, a Western “settlement” on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes.

Journalism and Patriotism
(WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2022) – In a democratic society, journalists exercise the highest form of citizenship by monitoring events in the community and making the public aware of them and their import; by skeptically examining the behavior of people and institutions of power; by encouraging and informing forums for public debate, writes Bill Kovach.

Enhance Democracy in Colombia
(BOSTON, July 29, 2022) – Colombian president-elect Alvaro Uribe has announced he wants to assume more power by cutting functions of the judicial and legislative branches. Fernando Londoño, the man expected to be the next interior and justice minister, has said “there are no absolute rights.” Colombian ICIJ member María Cristina Caballero asks if these early announcements mean that Colombia is planning a return to the old days of authoritarianism.

So Tim’s Death Will Not Have Been in Vain
(AUSTIN, Texas, July 26, 2022) – Brazilian investigative journalist Tim Lopes was assassinated last month by drug traffickers, while he was secretly filming in a territory controlled by one of the gangs. The death of Lopes in the line of duty will not have been in vain if, as a result, Brazilian society commits itself to root out the cancer of drug trafficking and organized crime, writes Rosental Calmon Alves.

ICIJ Member Succumbs to Fatal Disease Contracted While Reporting
(WASHINGTON, July 11, 2022) – Robert Friedman, an ICIJ member and an award-winning American investigative reporter, dies after a long illness contracted while investigating a story in India.

Documentary On Bishop Wanted In Rwandan Genocide Wins $20,000 International Investigative Reporting Award
(WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2022) – A South African television documentary that revealed the secret hideout of a clergyman accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has won the 2021 ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

‘Tell them nothing until it’s over and then tell them who won’
(LONDON, Oct. 31, 2021) – In wartime, government considers the news media a menace. And that means certain stories in this war have not been given the attention they deserve, writes ICIJ member Phillip Knightley, author of “The First Casualty.”

The disinformation campaign
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2021) – The Western media follow a depressingly familiar formula when it comes to the preparation of a nation for conflict, writes ICIJ member Phillip Knightley, author of “The First Casualty,” a history of war reporting.

When criticism becomes a crime
(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, August 2021) – Argentine ICIJ member Horacio Verbitsky is featured in a Quill magazine article about journalists fighting defamation laws in Latin America.

U.S. Military Aid Implicated in Human Rights Abuses
(WASHINGTON July 12, 2021) – U.S. anti-drug money spent on Latin America has been funneled through corrupt military, paramilitary and intelligence organizations and ends up violating basic human rights, a new ICIJ investigation shows.

Reporters without boundaries
(MELBOURNE, Australia, July 2021) – When a multi-national starts doing the dirty, who you gonna call? Cue an international “dream team” of journalists who’ll get the job done. ICIJ member Bill Birnbauer explains why he decided to join a global consortium of investigative journalists.

Last Bastion of Free Press
(MOSCOW, July 10, 2021) – As the last independent broadcast in Russia is in risk of disappearing, U.S. President George W. Bush should speak out. A Moscow Times commentary by ICIJ member Yevgenia Albats on why a free press in Russia is essential for democracy to thrive.

The Day Democracy Died in Russia
(MOSCOW, April 17, 2021) – The once-independent Russian television station NTV has been taken over by the state-dominated natural gas giant Gazprom in a saga that is less about business than about democracy. By Yevgenia Albats, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Is there a magic formula to restore the good old days?
(LONDON, March 23, 2021) – With newspaper circulation declining and TV news in crisis, ICIJ member and author Phillip Knightley examines what the future holds for journalism.

Protecting the Rights of the People Through Investigative Reporting
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 4, 2020) – ICIJ member Gwen Lister and her colleagues at The Namibian have persevered for 15 years through harassment, intimidation, arrests and fire-bombings. Read the tribute to their commitment to quality, independent journalism by Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, and a congratulatory letter from ICIJ Director Maud Beelman.

The Story Behind Fatal Care
(MELBOURNE, Australia, Aug. 1, 2020) – Bill Birnbauer, an investigative reporter for The Age in Melbourne and a member of ICIJ, tells the story of his two-year battle to extract documents on hospital accidents and deaths under Australia’s Freedom of Information law.

ICIJ Member Ignacio Gómez Forced To Flee Colombia
(WASHINGTON, June 21, 2020) – Following attacks and death threats by right-wing paramilitary forces, ICIJ member Ignacio Gómez has been forced to flee his native Colombia. ICIJ has joined other groups in protesting to Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango.

ICIJ Member Kabral Blay-Amihere Twice Detained in Ghana
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2020) – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists have protested the harassment of ICIJ charter member Kabral Blay-Amihere in letters to Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings.

CPJ Draws Attention to Threats on Gorriti
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 1999) – The Committee to Protect Journalists announced that a campaign to defame Gustavo Gorriti, an ICIJ member and associate editor of Panama’s La Prensa newspaper, was being promoted by a group called “Committee for Freedom of Expression in Panama.”

Caballero Wins International Press Freedom Award
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 1999) – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based non-profit organization, presented its International Press Freedom Award to ICIJ member María Cristina Caballero for her courageous reporting on Colombia.

It Takes a Village
(MANILA, Philippines, Aug. 5, 1999) – ICIJ member Sheila Coronel on the troubling state of the media in the Philippines.

‘Where Journalists Still Get Respect’
(PANAMA CITY, July 21, 1999) – Gustavo Gorriti, an ICIJ member in Panama, comments on American journalism’s year of shame.

‘Journalism With Teeth’
(LONDON, July 17, 1999) – Phillip Knightley, an ICIJ Advisory Committee member in England, comments on the future of international investigative journalism.

Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Economic Information
(LONDON, April 1999) – Duncan Campbell, an ICIJ member in Scotland, releases a report on the ECHELON system and its role in the interception of communication satellites.

‘Open your Mind’
(NEW YORK, March 1999) – Stephen Engelberg, of The New York Times, tells us preconceived notions too often stand in the way of investigative reporting.

‘The Encryption Imperative’
(WASHINGTON, January 1999) – The debate over encryption in the newsroom.

Three ICIJ Members Win Recent Awards
(WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 1998) – Peruvian ICIJ member Gustavo Gorriti, and Goenawan Mohamad, an ICIJ member from Indonesia, were awarded the 1998 International Press Freedom Award by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Rui Araujo, ICIJ’s member in Portugal, was awarded the Portuguese Press Club prize for best national television report of 1998.

Member Biographies

ICIJ Award



Tools of the Trade



About ICIJ

ICIJ was launched in 1997 as a project of the Center for Public Integrity to extend globally the Center’s style of watchdog journalism in the public interest by marshaling the talents of the world’s leading investigative reporters to focus on issues that do not stop at water’s edge.

For decades, people around the world have seen or heard news of global events simultaneously, from political and economic scandals to wars and natural disasters. But commercial demands of the news industry have often meant that such information is brief, disjointed, confusing in the larger context, and seemingly less relevant to people. Broadcast networks and major newspapers have closed many of their foreign bureaus, even as the Internet and satellites have made national borders permeable.

Yet many of society’s major issues today cannot even be broached without addressing their global dimensions and context. How, for example, can journalists investigate and write comprehensively about the international arms and drug trade, political corruption, financial fraud, or the environment without information on these subjects from different parts of the world? Too often, most of these kinds of significant but complicated issues are ignored.

Meanwhile, in many developing countries, investigative reporters are killed, threatened, or imprisoned with alarming regularity. Amazingly unbowed by these life-and-death realities, they are unable to communicate or collaborate with colleagues who may be doing similar work.

Following the successful path forged by the Center for Public Integrity, ICIJ and its hand-picked cadre of international journalists investigate major global issues that affect us all and release its findings via The Public i and in media around the world.

ICIJ also supports international investigative journalism by showcasing the work of its individual members and by presenting $25,000 in annual prizes for outstanding global investigative reporting.

ICIJ is always on the lookout for outstanding investigative journalists. If you know of someone who should be considered for membership, please contact us at info@icij.org.

ICIJ Award

The ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting is the only one of its kind created specifically to honor transnational investigative reporting. The $20,000 first-place prize and $1,000 finalist awards are made possible by a grant from The John and Florence Newman Foundation to recognize, reward, and foster international investigative reporting.

The competition is open to any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality working in any medium. The main criteria for eligibility is that the investigation - either a single work or a single-subject series - involves reporting in at least two countries on a topic of world significance.

A five-member jury of international journalists selects one award winner and up to five finalist entries each year.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, is a select group of investigative reporters around the globe who combine talents to provide in-depth information in a world where borders have become permeable even as foreign news bureaus have closed.

We believe that an enlightened populace is an empowered one, and the ICIJ award is just one more way we try to achieve that goal.

News Release

NEW $20,000 AWARD ESTABLISHED FOR INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15, 1998 - A new $20,000 award recognizing the best international investigative reporting in the world was announced today by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative research organization based in Washington, D.C.

The award, part of the Center’s new International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), will go to a journalist or team of journalists who have demonstrated excellence in transnational investigative reporting the previous year.

The ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting is the only one of its kind created specifically to honor international investigative reporting. Any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality may submit for consideration an individual investigative piece of work, or single-subject series, on a transnational topic of world significance. A five-member international jury of journalists and journalism educators will select the winner.

“With the technological and communications breakthroughs of the last several years and the increased dangers and opportunities of living in a frontierless world, there is an increasing need for in-depth information that transcends national borders,” said Charles Lewis, executive director and founder of the Center for Public Integrity. “That was the impetus for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and we hope this award will further that goal.”

The ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting is made possible by a grant from The John and Florence Newman Foundation. The U.S. $20,000 cash award will be presented in November at the ICIJ members’ conference at Harvard University, hosted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

“As one of ICIJ’s early supporters, we are very impressed by the Consortium’s expanded potential to do good work around the world,” said John E. Newman, Jr., president of The John and Florence Newman Foundation. “We view this award as a great way to recognize and reward outstanding international investigative reporting.”

ICIJ extends globally the Center’s style of “watchdog journalism” in the public interest by marshaling the talents of the world’s leading investigative reporters to focus on issues that do not stop at water’s edge. Along with its annual award, ICIJ supports and showcases the best international investigative reporting and, through that, hopes to be a force for greater global accountability.

ICIJ Award Criteria

The ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting, made possible by a grant from The John and Florence Newman Foundation, honors excellence in transnational investigative journalism with a $20,000 first-place cash prize and up to five finalist awards of $1,000 each.

To apply, follow the guidelines below and complete an ICIJ Award Application Form. Incomplete entries, as well as those that arrive after the deadline, will be disqualified.

Applicants:
Any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality is eligible to submit an individual investigative piece of work, or single-subject series, on a transnational topic of world significance. Works produced in print, broadcast, and online media are eligible; books are not eligible. In the case of a team of journalists, the first name listed on the application shall be deemed to be the designated representative of the team.

Criteria:
Work must have been first published or broadcast in general information media between June 1, 2022 and June 1, 2023. The story or series must involve reporting in at least two countries. Preference will be given to projects that involved on-the-ground reporting in those countries. Work is eligible without regard to the language in which it originally appeared. However, entries submitted in the original language must be accompanied by an English translation. For video/audio entries, English-language transcripts are required. English-language subtitles on video entries are preferred but not mandatory. Audio entries should be sent on cassette, with accompanying script; video entries on VHS cassette in NTSC format, with accompanying script. Six copies of each submission are required. No email submissions accepted.

Submission Letter:
Include a brief synopsis of the story/series and explain the background of the project, identifying the issues and key players. Describe what led you to the topic, any unusual conditions you or your team faced in developing the project and whether the investigation had any ramifications. If there were any challenges to the content of the story/series that were not reported in the original work, you must describe them in your letter. The submission letter should be in English and no longer than two typed pages. Curriculum vitae must be submitted for every reporter named in the entry.

Entry Fee:
None.

Deadline:
All entries must be postmarked no later than July 15, 2023. Only one entry per applicant is allowed. For receipt confirmation, include a self-addressed envelope.

Selection:
A five-member international jury of journalists and/or journalism educators will select the ICIJ award winner and any finalists.

Presentation:
The winner and finalists will be announced in fall 2023. Awards are made payable to the individual journalist responsible for the winning work or, in the case of a team of journalists, to the team’s designated representative.

Signature:
The signature of the applying journalist (or the applying team’s designated representative) is required. If the copyright to the work is not owned by the applying journalist or team of journalists, the signature of the copyright owner (or its authorized representative) is also required. Signature grants ICIJ a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license to reproduce, publish and distribute the work (in whole or in part) in any Center for Public Integrity/ICIJ publication in any media if the applicant is selected as a finalist or winner.

2022 Award

Series On Immigrant Labor Abuses Wins $20,000 International Investigative Reporting Award

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 21 – Between 1994 and 1999, 4,202 immigrants died in workplace-related incidents in the United States, more than 500 of them in the state of New York. That was one of several key findings in an investigative report on abuses suffered by immigrants in American workplaces that won the 2022 ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

In his five-part series, “Death on the Job: Immigrants at Risk”, Newsday reporter Thomas Maier revealed that New York had the nation’s highest rate of immigrant workers killed on the job, that victims and their survivors waited years for compensation and that hundreds of immigrant worker deaths nationwide were never investigated by the government. Relying on government documents, court records and extensive interviews in the United States and El Salvador, Maier’s investigation showed that in every U.S. state where immigrants flocked during the economic boom of the 1990s, foreign-born workers were more likely to die in the workplace than native-born workers.

“This is investigative journalism in its best sense – a series spotlighting a topic that had not even been noticed, during a year when most people (including the media) were focusing on immigrants as potential threats, not potential victims of the great U.S. economy,” the ICIJ award judges said in selecting Maier as the winner of the $20,000 first-place prize.

The independent panel of international journalists also selected five entries from three countries to receive the $1,000 finalists’ awards. The finalists for the fifth annual award, in alphabetical order, are

Bamidele Adebayo of TheNEWS magazine in Nigeria, for his investigation into a financial scam that drained money from a Brazilian bank and had ramifications on two continents.

Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker for his examination of Saddam Hussein’s campaign of genocide against the Kurds of northern Iraq.

Stephen Grey, Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, Gareth Walsh, Joe Lauria, John Goetz, Nicholas Hellen and Richard Miniter of London’s The Sunday Times for their five-part series on the events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2021, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Sue Lloyd-Roberts of the BBC for her television documentary on human organ selling and stealing in Moldova.

Sudarsan Raghavan, Sumana Chatterjee and Tish Wells of the Knight-Ridder news service for their investigation into how boys on Ivory Coast farms are enslaved and forced to harvest cocoa for American consumers’ chocolate addiction.

The ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting is unique among journalism awards worldwide in that it was created specifically to honor international investigative reporting. Presented by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, the annual award is made possible by a grant from The John and Florence Newman Foundation of San Antonio, Texas.

Competition for the 2022 award attracted 69 entries from 23 countries, involving reporting in 63 countries. The award will be presented in London in June 2023 at a meeting of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality working in print, broadcast or online media may apply for the award. In keeping with the transnational emphasis of the ICIJ award, eligible investigations must involve reporting in at least two countries. For more details on this year’s ICIJ award winner and finalists, as well as information on how to apply for the 2023 award, please visit the ICIJ Web site at www.icij.org.
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative research organization in Washington, D.C., created ICIJ in 1997 to extend globally the Center’s style of “watchdog journalism” in the public interest. The ICIJ network of more than 80 journalist-members in over 40 countries investigates issues that transcend national borders, and its reports can be read in the Center’s online report The Public i (www.public-i.org).

Contacts: André Verlöy or Maud Beelman at The Center for Public Integrity, 202-466-1300, or by e-mail to info@icij.org.

Past Winners


2021 ICIJ Award Winner
“The Bishop of Shyogwe”, a documentary that revealed the secret hideout of a clergyman accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda by Jacques Pauw of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. For more information, please see the press release.

2021 ICIJ Award Finalists
Read summaries and excerpts from our five finalists’ submissions.

2021 Award Judges
Find out about our distinguished judges and read their commendation letter to the winner.
2020 ICIJ Award Winner
“Bridge at No Gun Ri,” an investigation into the killings of hundreds of Korean refugees by U.S. military forces during the Korean War by Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft of The Associated Press.
2020 ICIJ Award Finalists
Read summaries and excerpts from our five finalists’ submissions.

2020 Award Judges
Learn more about our distinguished judges and read their commendation letter to the winner.
1999 ICIJ Award Winner
Steve Bradshaw and Mike Robinson win for their TV documentary “When Good Men Do Nothing.” For more information, please see the press release.

1999 ICIJ Award Finalists
Read summaries and excerpts from our five finalists’ submissions.

1999 Award Judges
Find out about our distinguished judges and read their commendation letter to the winner.
1998 ICIJ Award Winner
Nate Thayer wins for his exclusive reports on Pol Pot. Read his acceptance comments, press release and the finalist summaries for further details.

Application Form

FULL NAME OF REPORTER(S):
POSTAL ADDRESS:
E-MAIL ADDRESS:
WORK AND HOME TELEPHONE:
FAX NUMBER:
EMPLOYER (IF FREE-LANCER, PLEASE STATE):
ADDRESS OF EMPLOYER:
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE AWARD:
TITLE OF ENTRY:
DESCRIPTION OF ENTRY:
MEDIUM:
WHERE/WHEN WORK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED OR BROADCAST:
SIGNATURE OF APPLICANT(S) AUTHORIZING PERMISSION TO REPRINT WORK:
DATE:

Six copies of the published or broadcast entry, the submission letter, and curriculum vitae must accompany this application. Submit to:
ICIJ @ THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY
910 17TH STREET NW, 7TH FLOOR
WASHINGTON, DC 20206, USA
TEL: 202-466-1300 FAX: 202-466-1101
E-MAIL: info@icij.org WEB: http://www.icij.org

Tools of the Trade

Here is some information to help you do your job, better your professional skills, and be rewarded for good work. We are always looking for ways to promote international investigative reporting, so if you have ideas for other kinds of information that would be helpful, please let us know at info@icij.org.

U.S. Public Records Law

Documents and other data are often the building blocks of a great investigative report. So understanding and using laws that give you access to such information are necessary tools of the trade.

The United States passed its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), giving the public the right to access certain government documents, in 1966. Thirty years later, the act was amended to address electronic forms of data. From a global perspective, the public’s right to access government records is a privilege in some countries and an ongoing, heated debate in others.

Here is an overview of your rights under the U.S. federal FOIA, including its most recent changes.

General Instructions for Filing Requests
Exemptions under the FOIA
Suggested FOI Resources
Sample FOIA Request Letter

What is the FOIA?

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a U.S. law that gives the public a right to obtain copies of certain documents from federal government agencies. The FOIA applies to records held by agencies in the executive branch of the federal government. The executive branch includes cabinet and military departments, government and government-controlled corporations, and other offices, such as independent regulatory agencies. Every U.S. state and some cities have passed laws similar to the federal FOIA that permit the public to request records.

Anyone can request records under the federal FOIA. You do not have to be a United States citizen. Some state FOI laws, however, limit access to public records to citizens of that state.

Two U.S. federal laws give you the right to access certain government information:

The Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. Section 552), enacted in 1966, amended in 1974, 1986, and 1996
The Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. Section 552a)
If you have any questions about the law or need general guidance for filing federal requests, contact:

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Information and Privacy (OIP)
Flag Building, Suite 570
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
USA
1-202-514-3642
Although the Freedom of Information Act is intended to provide greater access to information, delays and certain restrictions are common. The agency may provide the records if you simply call and explain what you need. File a FOIA request as a last resort.

Fellowships, Exchanges, Grants

The following are open to all journalists, regardless of nationality, unless otherwise specified. Applicants generally must have three to five years of professional journalism experience and fluency in English. Please contact the individual programs for specific information. See below for additional online information resources and contact us at info@icij.org if you know of programs not listed here.

Fellowships (One-year)
Short-Term Fellowships
Professional Exchanges
Grants
Additional Resources

FELLOWSHIPS (One-year/Institution-based)

Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program
The program invites mid-career professional journalists from developing countries, East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union to the United States for a year of study at select U.S. universities. Fellows participate in programs that combine academic coursework with professional development activities. The fellowship covers tuition, travel, housing, and living expenses.
For more information, contact:

Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Division
Institute of International Education
1400 K Street, N.W., Suite 650
Washington, D.C. 20205
USA
Tel: (1-202) 326-7701
Fax: (1-202) 326-7702
E-mail: hhh@iie.org or humphrey@usia.gov
Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace
United States Institute of Peace
The program offers 14 fellowships to professionals of varying backgrounds (including journalism). Priority is given to applicants who propose projects that promise to make timely contributions to the understanding and resolution of ongoing and emerging international conflicts. Fellows carry out their projects in residence at the Washington-based institute and participate in public outreach efforts. Fellowships are usually awarded for 12 months, beginning in September. The program attempts to match the recipient’s earned income during the year preceding the fellowship, subject to certain limits. The award also includes health insurance and travel costs for fellows and dependents.
For more information, contact:

United States Institute of Peace
Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace
1550 M Street, N.W., Suite 700F
Washington, D.C. 20205-1708
USA
Tel: (1-202) 429-3886
Fax: (1-202) 429-6063
E-mail: jrprogram@usip.org
John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists
Stanford University
Typically 12 U.S. and six international journalists are selected to spend an academic year (beginning in September) at Stanford University. The fellows attend weekly seminars designed to introduce new ideas and perspectives through listening to and talking with internationally recognized scholars and professionals. Stipends vary according to funding resources, but are usually not less than $45,000.
For more information, contact:

Director
John S. Knight Fellowships
Building 120, Room 424
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2050
USA
Tel: (1-650) 723-4937
Fax: (1-650) 725-6154
E-mail: knightfellow@forsythe.stanford.edu
The Kiplinger Reporting Program
Ohio State University
Eight journalists are chosen annually for an academic year at Ohio State University’s School of Journalism and Communication. The program is focused on public affairs reporting at all levels of government, including issues of ethical and social concern. Each fellow produces an investigative story as part of the curriculum. When classes are in session, fellows spend about 20 hours/week as paid graduate teaching assistants. Tuition is free, and a stipend of at least $20,000 is provided for living expenses.
For more information, contact:

James Neff, Director
The Kiplinger Reporting Program
School of Journalism and Communication
Ohio State University
242 W. 18th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1107
USA
Tel: (1-614) 292-2607/9087
Fax: (1-614) 292-3809
E-mail: neff.67@osu.edu
Knight-Bagehot Fellowship/Economics-Business Journalism
Columbia University
Ten broadcast and print journalists spend nine months at Columbia University’s graduate schools of Journalism, Business, International Affairs, and Law to broaden their understanding of business and economics. International applicants may apply for funding through the World Bank. An average annual scholarship, covering tuition, living expenses, and travel costs, is about $30,000.
For more information, contact:

Terri Thompson, Knight-Bagehot Director
Graduate School of Journalism
Mail Code 3850
2950 Broadway
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
USA
Tel: (1-212) 854-2711
Fax: (1-212) 854-3900
E-mail: tat5@columbia.edu
Manship Fellowships
Louisiana State University
One to two international journalists are selected annually for these 12-month fellowships (three semesters, including summer). Up to $10,202 are available for tuition and other expenses. Housing and travel expenses are not covered. Fellows earn a Master of Mass Communication degree upon completion of the program.
For more information, contact:

Richard Alan Nelson
Manship School of Mass Communication
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-7202
USA
Tel: (1-504) 388-2336
Fax: (1-504) 388-2125
E-mail: rnelson@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu
Media Studies Center Residential Fellowship Program
The program, funded by The Freedom Forum, awards 10 to 12 fellowships each year to working journalists and media scholars interested in examining media issues in depth. Fellows are in residence at the Media Studies Center in New York for periods of three months to one academic year for major scholarly or professional projects. A stipend is provided based on each fellow’s previous salary. Fellows are also provided housing (for those from outside New York), office space, and research assistance.
For more information, contact:

Larry McGill, Director of Research
Media Studies Center
580 Madison Avenue
42nd Floor
New York, NY 10022
USA
Tel: (1-212) 317-6500
Fax: (1-212) 317-6572
E-mail: McGill@ffnyc.mhs.compuserve.com
Michigan Journalism Fellowships
The University of Michigan
The program provides mid-career journalists the opportunity to study at the University of Michigan and participate in twice-weekly seminars (September through April) about current news issues. Typically, 12 American and four to six international fellows are selected. International fellows must apply to other funding sources to cover the approximately $35,000 in tuition and expenses. The program has a list of grant-giving organizations international fellows may contact.
For more information, contact:

Charles R. Eisendrath
Wallace House
University of Michigan
620 Oxford Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2635
USA
Tel: (1-734) 998-7666
Fax: (1-734) 998-7979
Email: rbs@umich.edu
Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Harvard University
The oldest mid-career journalism fellowship program in the world provides an academic year (September to June) at Harvard for 12 American and 10 to 12 international journalists to pursue courses in an individually designed program. As part of the application process, each journalist must write an essay proposing a general field or subject of study to pursue as a Nieman fellow. Since income from the Nieman endowment typically supports U.S. citizens, international applicants must compete for restricted grants available to the program or secure their own financial backing. The estimated annual cost for international fellows is $25,000, including tuition, travel, housing, and other expenses.
For more information, contact:

Program Officer
Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Harvard University
Walter Lippmann House
One Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-2098
USA
Tel: (1-617) 495-2237
Fax: (1-617) 495-8976
E-mail: nieman@harvard.edu
Nieman Foundation/Environmental Journalism Fellowships
Harvard University
One American and one international journalist specializing in environmental news are chosen each year to pursue a course of concentrated study under supervision of the Nieman program and Harvard University’s Committee on Environment. Fellowships are granted for the academic year (September to June) and include tuition, travel, and a stipend (approximately $17,000) for living expenses.
For more information, contact:

Program Officer
Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Harvard University
Walter Lippmann House
One Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-2098
USA
Tel: (1-617) 495-2237
Fax: (1-617) 495-8976
E-mail: nieman@harvard.edu
The Reuters Foundation Fellowship
University fellowship are awarded annually to journalists from developing countries. Variable number of one to three term felowships to broadcast and print journalists at the University of Oxford, Oxford, England; Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.; and the Universiry of Bordeaux, Gironde, France. Four month fellowship for photojournalists is also awarded at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, MO, U.S. The Reuters Foundation also run seminars, short-term training courses and traveling workshops for journalists from the developing world and Central/Eastern Europe.
For more information, contact:

Director
The Reuters Foundation
85 Fleet Street
London, England EC4P 4AJ
Tel: (44-171) 542-7015
Fax: (44-171) 542-8599
E-mail: foundation@reuters.com
Web Site: Http://www.foundation.reuters.com
Academic-Year Ambassadorial Scholarship
Rotary Foundation
The scholarship provides an academic study-year for journalists at institutions around the world, selected by the Rotary Foundation Trustees. The scholarship covers costs for transportation, tuition, fees, living expenses, and limited language training (as assigned by the Rotary Foundation). In general, no award exceeds $22,000. Applicants must be proficient in the host country’s language and be citizens of a country in which there is a Rotary Club.
For more information, contact:

Rotary Foundation of Rotary International
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
USA
Tel: (1-847) 866-3000
Fax: (1-847) 866-0934
The University of Hawaii Asia Fellowships
The fellowships provide mid-career opportunities for up to six professional journalists to increase their understanding of Asian society and culture through academic study. The program runs from August 1 to May 31 (18 credit hours over the academic year). Two additional fellowships have been offered recently to journalists from East Asia for the overseas study of their own region. Stipends, covered expenses, and availability of fellowships may vary according to overall funding resources.
For more information, contact:

D.W.Y. Kwok
University of Hawaii
2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki Hall A-203
Honolulu, HI 96822
USA
Tel: (1-808) 956-7123/7733
Fax: (1-808) 956-9600
Visiting Fulbright Scholar Program
This United States Information Agency program provides opportunities for international journalists to lecture, teach, or conduct research for three months to one academic year at universities in the United States. The program is administered through the United States Information Service (USIS) post at U.S. embassies worldwide. Specific information about grants and programs is available through the USIS office in your home country.
For more information, contact:

The United States Embassy or Consulate in your country,
OR via
E-mail: scholars@cies.iie.org
Web Site: http://www.iie.org/cies/
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowships
The Woodrow Wilson Center awards approximately 20 fellowships annually to individuals from around the world and a variety of backgrounds. The fellows reside at the Woodrow Wilson Center for the academic year (September to May/June). Preference is given to applicants with outstanding project proposals in the humanities and social sciences on national and international issues. The fellowship provides for an average stipend of $41,600, including travel expenses.
For more information, contact:

The Fellowships Office
The Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20523
USA
Tel: (1-202) 691-4170
E-mail: fellowships@wwics.si.edu

Center for International Journalism
University of Southern California
The program offers professional journalists the opportunity to devote a year to studying economic, political, and social issues in the news, with an emphasis on Latin America, especially Mexico.
For more information, contact:

Stella Lopez
University of Southern California
Annenberg School for Communication
Garden Level, Room 16
University Park
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281
USA
Tel: (1-213) 740-8277
Fax: (1-213) 740-8036
E-mail: sblopez@bmf.usc.edu
Mid-Career Professional Development Program
University of Missouri-Columbia
The program brings one journalist from Eastern Europe or the Baltic states for an academic year of study and off-campus cultural activity. The University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism also sponsors a two-year graduate program for one or two journalists from China, selected annually.
For more information, contact:

Professor Byron Scott
School of Journalism
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65205
USA
Tel: (1-573) 882-7792
Fax: (1-573) 882-9002
E-mail: scottbt@missouri.edu
Mid-Career Professional Development Program
California State University, Chico
Sponsored by the United States Information Agency’s International Media Training Center, this one-year study program is open to journalists from Albania, Romania, Macedonia, and Kyrgyzstan. Availability of grants varies.
For more information, contact:

Professor Peter Gross
Department of Journalism
California State University at Chico
Chico, CA 95929
USA
Tel: (1-530) 898-4090/4779
Fax: (1-530) 898-4839
E-mail: pgross@oavax.csuchico.edu
Visiting Media Fellows Program
Duke University
Journalists from around the world are invited to study at Duke University for varying lengths of stay – a few weeks to one academic year. Fellows pursue personal and professional interests by attending classes, special lectures, seminars, cultural activities, and other university events. Funding may vary each year. Financial support from private foundations or governments may be available for applicants from Eastern/Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.
For more information, contact:

Dee Reid, Program Director
DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism
Duke University, Box 90241
Durham, NC 27708-0241
USA
Tel: (1-919) 613-7330
Fax: (1-919) 684-4270
E-mail: dee@pps.duke.edu

SHORT-TERM FELLOWSHIPS
(Professional Development)

Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships
The fellowship program provides a hands-on, professional training experience in the United States for 10-15 print journalists from developing and transitional countries with an emerging free press. Fellows work as general assignment reporters in newspapers throughout the United States. The fellowship covers all program-related travel costs, housing and provides a monthly stipend of approximately $1,000 (amount varies annually) to cover basic living expenses.
For more information, contact:
Susan Albrecht, Executive Director
Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships
2020 L Street, N.W., Suite 202
Washington, D.C. 20236-4997
USA
Tel: (1-202) 416-1691
Fax: (1-202) 416-1695
E-mail: afpf@aol.com
Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Media Fellowships
CASE can offer more than 202 short-term fellowships at 22 different colleges and universities. Journalists will get the opportunity to explore topical issues, such as economics, environment, cultural issues, international affairs and technology in depth. Participants will spend from several days to one week in one-on-one meetings with senior faculty and engaging in hands-on research on campus and in the field. Host institutions provide room and board; the media organization pays the journalist’s travel expenses and salary during the fellowship. Applications are due by December 1, 2021.
For more information contact:

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)
Cheryl Wesley
1307 New York Avenue, NW
Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20205
Phone:(202) 478-5646
Fax: (202) 387-4973
E-mail: Wesley@case.org

Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship
This Rotary Foundation scholarship provides a three- or six-month award for intensive language training and cultural immersion in select countries. The scholarship covers travel, tuition and related fees, and housing expenses. Applicants must have had at least one year of university-level training or equivalent experience in their proposed language of study and be citizens of a country in which there is a Rotary Club.
For more information, contact:
Rotary Foundation of Rotary International
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
USA
Tel: (1-847) 866-3000
Fax: (1-847) 866-0934
Freedom Forum/American Society of Newspaper Editors International Journalism Exchange
Ten international newspaper editors from any nation outside Western Europe and North America are invited to the United States annually for a five-week program, which includes a monthlong newspaper assignment. Editors from countries in transition to democratic rule are given priority. The program covers all travel, housing, and living expenses.
For more information, contact:
International Center for Journalists
1616 H Street, N.W.
Third Floor
Washington, D.C. 20206
USA
Tel: (1-202) 737-3700
Fax: (1-202) 737-0530
E-mail: editor@icfj.org
Freedom Forum International Journalists-in-Residence Program
The program invites 12 journalists annually from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Central and South America to study and gain a broad understanding of the U.S. media. The four-month program provides for travel costs, basic living expenses at a university in the United States (varies yearly and according to specialty), and health insurance during the program.
For more information, contact:
International Journalists-in-Residence Program
The Freedom Forum
1101 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22209
USA
Tel: (1-703) 284-2860
Fax: (1-703) 528-3520
E-mail: intl@freedomforum.org
Freedom House Visiting Fellows Program
The 10-week internship program provides new leaders from developing democracies in Central and Eastern Europe the opportunity to work side-by-side in the United States with their American counterparts in government, non-governmental organizations, media, and business. Freedom House, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes democracy worldwide, covers roundtrip travel and housing expenses and provides $25/day for living expenses.
For more information, contact:
Freedom House Program Officer
1319 18th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20236
USA
Tel: (1-202) 296-5101
Fax: (1-202) 296-5256
E-mail: fh@freedomhouse.org
Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and
Public Policy Fellowships
A small number of fellowships are awarded for one-semester (four months) of study at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government on the relationship between politics and the media. Fellows must write a 30-page research paper on a topic related to press and politics during their term. Fellows also participate in informal weekly seminars and roundtable discussions. The program offers a stipend of $15,000 for the semester. Travel and living expenses are not covered.
For more information, contact:
Edith Holway
Joan Shorenstein Center
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Tel: (1-617) 495-8269
Fax: (1-617) 495-8696
E-mail: Edith_Holway@Harvard.edu
Jefferson Fellowships
Six U.S. journalists and six from the Asia-Pacific region are selected for an exchange program at the East-West Center in Hawaii. The fellows participate in seminars on issues critical to Asia and the Pacific Rim. The U.S. fellows then travel throughout Asia, and the Asian fellows travel throughout the United States, for four weeks before returning to Honolulu for a final week of seminars and exchange of ideas. Stipends cover living and travel expenses during the program.
For more information, contact:
Webster K. Nolan, Director
East-West Center Media Program
1601 East-West Road
Honolulu, HI 96848-1601
USA
Tel: (1-808) 944-7192/7199
Fax: (1-808) 944-7670
E-mail: nolanw@ewc.hawaii.edu
The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography
The school offers 12 fellowships to journalists from all media who specialize in environmental and marine reporting. During the four-day workshop, reporters work with researchers and public policy experts to study principles and ethics of scientific inquiry. Session topics focus on ways of integrating science into public policy and the local community. Each fellowship provides room, board, and tuition, but does not include travel expenses.
For more information, contact:
Jackleen de La Harpe
University of Rhode Island
Graduate School of Oceanography
Narragansett Bay Campus
Narragansett, RI 02882
USA
Tel: (1-401) 874-6499
Fax: (1-401) 874-6486
E-mail: jack@gso.uri.edu
National Press Foundation/Prochnow Educational Foundation Fellowship for Journalists
The fellowship provides 10 journalists annually the opportunity to better understand banking and business through the two-week program at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Prochnow Educational Foundation provides for tuition and housing expenses for international fellows. Travel costs are covered by the National Press Foundation.
For more information, contact:
Director
Prochnow Educational Foundation
5315 Wall Street
Madison, WI 53704
USA
Tel: (1-608) 243-1945
Fax: (1-608) 243-1951
E-mail: bklocker@gsb.org
Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights
Colby College
The fellowship program supports prominent practitioners in international human rights to spend up to one semester as a scholar-in-residence at its campus in Maine. The fellow participates in a course with Colby faculty and assists in shaping a lecture series or symposium. All human rights practitioners are eligible, but those who are currently involved in on-the-ground work at some level of personal risk are encouraged to apply. The fellow receives a stipend, college fringe benefits, travel, housing for family, and use of a car, among other support.
For more information, contact:
Professor Kenneth A. Rodman
Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights
Colby College
Waterville, ME 04901
USA
Tel: (1-207) 872-3270
Fax: (1-207) 872-3263
E-mail: oakhr@colby.edu
Science Writing Fellowships Program
Marine Biological Laboratory
The fellowships offer summer residencies of up to eight weeks in a program designed to increase public understanding of biology, biomedicine, and environmental and ecosystems science. Fellows work closely with scientists carrying out research and graduate students studying advanced research methods. After completing a one-week laboratory course, fellows are encouraged to spend up to seven additional weeks enrolled in a graduate course or assigned to a scientist’s laboratory, or both. Financial support covers the cost of lab course, tuition, housing, and library fees. International fellows must pay their travel expenses to the United States and be proficient in English.
For more information, contact:
MBL Science Writing Fellowships Program
Marine Biological Laboratory
7 MBL Street
Woods Hole, MA 02543
USA
Tel: (1-508) 289-7423
Fax: (1-508) 457-1924
E-mail: pclapp@mbl.edu
Southern and South Africa Journalism Fellows Program
The program invites five journalists annually from South Africa and the southern Africa region to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies for two to three weeks. Fellows attend seminars and have the opportunity to use the Institute’s media research library to work on independent projects and observe local newspapers. The program provides for travel, housing, meals, and tuition.
For more information, contact:
Dr. Karen F. Brown, Dean of the Faculty
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies
801 Third Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
USA
Tel: (1-813) 821-9494
Fax: (1-813) 821-0583
E-mail: kfbrown@poynter.org
OR
Institute for the Advancement of Journalism
9 Jubilee Road
Parktown, Johannesburg 2193
South Africa
Tel: (27-11) 484-1765/1768
Fax

International Reporting Awards

These competitions honor journalists around the world, who have demonstrated excellence in reporting. Most of the competitions are open, but some may require an in-house nomination or entry fee. For more detailed information, please contact the specific organization via e-mail or post. If you know of other awards for international investigative reporting open to all, please let us hear from you.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting
Honors transnational investigative journalism, based on reporting in at least two countries. Professional journalists of any nationality are eligible to submit for consideration an investigative piece of work or single-subject series on a topic of world significance.

ICIJ @ The Center for Public Integrity
910 17th Street NW
7th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20206
USA
E-mail: info@icij.org

SAIS-Novartis Prize for Excellence in International Journalism
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University recognizes journalists whose work has brought to the public’s attention a subject of international importance. Any professional journalist is eligible to apply without regard to nationality or place of residence.

The SAIS-Novartis Prize
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20236
USA
E-mail: sais-novartis@mail.jhuwash.jhu.edu

UNESCO/Guillermo CANO World Press Freedom Prize
The annual award honors a journalist, organization, or institution dedicated to protecting press freedom in any part of the world. Nominations are accepted from international and regional professional and non-governmental organizations in the journalism and freedom of expression areas.
UNESCO
Unit for Freedom of Expression and Democracy
1, rue Miollis
75732 Paris cedex 15
FRANCE
E-mail: freedom@unesco.org

International Federation of Journalists
Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism
Organized by countries of the European Union, the competition promotes reporting on human rights and democracy as crucial elements of development. Only entries from print journalists are eligible, and articles must have been published in a developing country or in an EU member state.
The Lorenzo Natali Prize
European Commission
Directorate General for Development
202 rue de la Loi
B-1049 Brussels
BELGIUM
E-mail: nataliprize@pophost.eunet.be

Committee to Protect Journalists
International Press Freedom Awards
Honor journalists around the world who have courageously provided independent news coverage under difficult and often dangerous conditions. Candidates are selected by the Committee to Protect Journalists’ staff and board, but nominations are welcome. Nominations should be sent to the Executive Director.

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
USA
E-mail: info@cpj.org

International Women’s Media Foundation
Courage in Journalism Awards
Honor full- or part-time female journalists who have demonstrated extraordinary courage in the face of physical danger, official secrecy, oppression, and/or political pressure. Any full- or part-time journalist is eligible for nomination.

International Women’s Media Foundation
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 1201
Washington, D.C. 20236
USA
E-mail: iwmf@aol.com

Free Media Pioneer Prize
The International Press Institute responds to threats to press freedom and injustice to journalists with an award recognizing journalists who have helped forge media independence. The award is open to submissions from any professional journalist whose work has forwarded the cause of freedom of expression.

The International Press Institute
Spiegelgasse 2
A-1010 Vienna
AUSTRIA
E-mail: info@freemedia.at

International Editor of the Year
World Press Review magazine presents an award to the editor-in-chief of a publication outside the United States. It honors courage and leadership in advancing press freedom and responsibility, enhancing human rights, and excellence in journalism. Nominations are welcome.

World Press Review
202 Madison Avenue
Suite 2104
New York, NY 10016
USA
E-mail: martz@worldpress.org

World Press Photo Awards
Honor excellence in photojournalism for spot news, portraits, general news, science and technology, nature and the environment, and the World Press Photo of the Year. Invitations to apply are sent to news organizations around the world.

World Press Photo Foundation
Jacob Obrechtstraat 26
1071 KM Amsterdam
The NETHERLANDS
E-mail: office@worldpressphoto.nl
or 100277.3402@compuserve.com

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