‘Why are American taxpayers subsidizing any part of his operations?’
A distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute has unleashed his criticism of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program for bailing out billionaire George Soros’ East-West Management Institute, with payments totaling nearly half a million dollars.
That’s while the organization’s federal grants and contracts, its primary source of income, were rising from $9 million in Fiscal Year 2019 to nearly $15 million in 2020.
The comments come from Chris Farrell, in an article at Gatestone.
He noted that in March the Small Business Administration gave a $234,548 “loan” to EWMI. He reported that followed a $226,179 PPP “loan” a year earlier.
“The official description of the transaction is ‘to aid small businesses in maintaining workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ but federal grants and contracts to EWMI (its primary source of revenue) rose from $9,185,194 in FY 2019 to $14,859,293 in 2020,” he explained.
“As a supposedly small business struggling through the pandemic, EWMI enjoys office space at 575 Madison Avenue in New York City and 1101 Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, D.C.,” he explained.
Farrell, also an executive with Judicial Watch, noted his organization published a report in 2018 that documented how EWMI “manages projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development.”
“For those interested, EWMI maintains a web page with documentation concerning their non-profit status and their financial statements. You can also view their self-described ‘Donors and Partners’ who, evidently, were not able or willing to ‘loan’ money to EWMI for paycheck protection. The list of donors and partners is quite remarkable — from the World Bank to Romania’s Justice Ministry, among many others. It makes one wonder why American taxpayers had to cover the PPP ‘loan.’ It reminds one of Senator William Proxmire’s (D-WI) ‘Golden Fleece Award’ for squandering the American public’s money,” Farrell explained.
He continued, “We need to ask ourselves how ‘the system’ – our government – facilitates this sort of racket without checks or oversight. Harvard University can be publicly shamed into returning COVID relief money, but a Soros group gets a pass? Why the disparity of treatment and accountability?
