The State Department has dropped sanctions against one of the loudest opponents of George Soros in Eastern Europe.
Sali Berisha, leader of the Albanian opposition party, confirmed to the Daily Signal Friday that the State Department lifted sanctions against him on Thursday. The State Department had sanctioned Berisha, a former president and prime minister who steered the Balkan country after the fall of communism in the 1990s, for “corrupt acts,” such as misappropriation of public funds to enrich relatives. Berisha denied the claims.
“As of yesterday, following an in-depth review of my case by the Department of State, my family members and I are no longer barred from traveling to the United States of America,” Berisha, head of Albania’s Democratic Party, told the Daily Signal. “Thus, an unjust decision made by the previous U.S. administration against me and my family was rectified.”
Berisha, an avowed opponent of Hungarian American billionaire George Soros and his son Alex, suggested that Soros played a role in the sanctions against him. George Soros had worked with Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister. Alex Soros, who now runs his father’s Open Society Foundations, has repeatedly met with Rama.
“I would like to thank President Trump’s administration and Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio for correcting this unfair decision, which was entirely based on the corrupt lobbying of Edi Rama and his mentor, George Soros.”
The Open Society Foundations did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment about whether George or Alex Soros played a role in Berisha’s sanctions.
The State Department confirmed that it has issued waivers for several designations under 7031(c) of the Financial Management and Budget Transparency Act from the previous administration.
When then-Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., pressed Blinken for evidence of Berisha’s alleged corruption, the State Department stonewalled him, Zeldin told the Washington Free Beacon in December 2021.
Soros Influence
Alex Soros has posted many photos of himself with Albania’s Socialist Party Prime Minister, Edi Rama, often calling the foreign leader his “brother.” Open Society Foundations launched and funded so many non-governmental organizations in the country that critics say it dominates civil society, and American tax dollars funneled through the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development dovetail with Open Society Funding.
Critics like Berisha say Open Society pushes “anti-family” policies in Albania and worked to entrench Rama’s power.
Open Society Foundations touted its influence in a 2021 “fact sheet” on the Balkan country. George Soros’ foundation—which would become OSF—spent more than $57 million building 275 schools and kindergartens across the country in the early 1990s, and OSF touted that almost 70% of the population “has benefited from these schools.”
Last year, Albanian journalist Sami Neza said that Soros has so dominated the NGO space that no civil society groups can exist outside his influence. He said that he can count on one hand the number of staff at Albanian NGOs without a connection to Soros. Neza serves as executive director at the Center for Transparency and Freedom of Information, which received a contribution from the Charles Koch Institute in 2020.
Open Society earmarked $600,000 to support the process of overhauling the judicial system, according to the 2021 fact sheet.
Rovena Gashi, then general prosecutor in Albania, sent a letter to Congress submitted into the record in May 2017 outlining the close ties between the Soros Foundation and the bodies carrying out the justice reform.
“It appears that while Soros and the OSF are trying to influence many places in Europe, Albania has been ‘targeted’ for extra attention,” Steven Bucci, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former Army Special Forces officer who was stationed in Albania for about two years, previously told the Daily Signal.
“Soros appears to have made Albania a virtual laboratory of socialist conversion,” Bucci added. “If America wants to push back on the international Soros / OSF agenda, Albania is the place to engage!”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
