New Documents Show State Department Working with Soros Group to Channel Money to Far-Left Activists in Albania

Judicial Watch has released 49 pages of new documents obtained from the U.S. Department of State about U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for George Soros’s left-wing nonprofit organizations in Albania. The documents deal primarily with the activities of Soros’ top operative in Albania, Andri Dobrushi, the director of Open Society Foundation-Albania, who was actively engaged in channeling funding to what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls Soros’ “mercenary army.” The documents show U.S. grant money flowing through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that profess to promote “civil society,” while in fact attacking traditional, pro-American groups, governments and policies.

The records reveal that Soros operative Dobrushi was the first person on a list of invitees by then U.S. Ambassador to Albania Donald Lu to attend an “election rollout event” held at the U.S. Embassy on April 27, 2015. The event was intended to “launch U.S. assistance for the June local elections,” being held in Tirana, Albania. As Judicial Watch previously reported in an April 4, 2018, press release, Ambassador Lu has been closely associated with Soros and the socialist government in Albania, which he assisted by denying U.S. visas to conservative jurists from the conservative party in Albania. Lu has since been nominated by the Trump administration to become US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.

Additionally, a June 18, 2015, email from Ilva Cuko, a Program Specialist in the Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, invites several people, including Dobrushi, to a “Donors Grant Reviewing meeting” at the U.S. Embassy, in which the participants would review applications for grants submitted by NGOs seeking U.S. taxpayer grant money from the State Department. Cuko says she would “like to invite you in a discussion on these proposals. Your valuable input and comments will be used by the U.S. Embassy’s Democracy Commission, which has the ultimate authority in awarding the grants.”

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