Shellenberger: USAID Paid for Trump Impeachment Effort

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By    |   Thursday, 06 February 2025 10:33 AM EST ET

The United States Agency for International Development and the CIA funded the 2019 impeachment effort against President Donald Trump, according to investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger.

Shellenberger took to social media Wednesday night to explain his findings.

"USAID's defenders say it's about charity and development in poor nations. It's not. It's a $40 billion driver of regime change abroad. And now the evidence suggests that it, along with the CIA, were behind the 2019 impeachment of Trump — an illegal regime change effort at home," Shellenberger posted on X with an image of his Substack "Public" story.

Shellenberger then posted a video and transcript detailing his findings surrounding the December 2019 impeachment that stemmed from a White House whistleblower claiming Trump abused his powers by withholding military aid to Ukraine in order to dig up dirt on his rival, former President Joe Biden.

The whistleblower claimed to have heard from White House staff that Trump directed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

"The whistleblower who triggered the impeachment was a CIA analyst who was first brought into the White House by the Obama administration," Shellenberger said in the interview.

"Reporting by Drop Site News last year revealed that the CIA analyst relied on reporting by a supposedly independent investigative news organization called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which appears to have effectively operated as an arm of the United States Agency for International Development, which President Trump has just shut down. The CIA whistleblower complaint cited a long report by OCCRP four times."

The OCCRP report alleged that two Soviet-born Florida businessmen were "key hidden actors behind a plan" by Trump to investigate the Bidens, and the businessman connected Giuliani to two former Ukrainian prosecutors.

In a 2024 documentary by German TV network NDR, a USAID official confirmed that the agency approves OCCRP's "annual work plan" and approves new hires of "key personnel."

French investigative news organization Mediapart, which took part in the documentary, reported that NDR censored the broadcast "after U.S. journalist Drew Sullivan, the co-founder and head of the OCCRP, placed pressure on the NDR management and made false accusations against the broadcaster's journalists involved in the project."

Shellenberger went on to say that Sullivan told NDR that OCCRP had "probably been responsible for five or six countries changing over from one government to another government … and getting prime ministers indicted or thrown out."

"As such, it appears that CIA, USAID, and OCCRP were all involved in the impeachment of President Trump in ways similar to the regime change operations that all three organizations engage in abroad," Shellenberger said. "The difference is that it is highly illegal and even treasonous for CIA, USAID, and its contractors and intermediaries, known as 'cut-outs,' to interfere in U.S. politics this way."

Shellenberger said OCCRP threatened to file a lawsuit against Shellenberger's Public in response to questions sent to the organization, though he added that "neither OCCRP nor anyone else disproved Drop Site's allegations and Drop Site stands by them."

"And the evidence does not support OCCRP's claim of journalistic independence," Shellenberger said.

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the CIA funded the 2019 impeachment effort against President Donald Trump, according to investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger.
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Thursday, 06 February 2025 10:33 AM
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