Follow the Money: Opening the Government’s Books Reveals Collusion, Contracts with Adversaries, and Earmarks

Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO and founder of the government watchdog organization OpenTheBooks.com, in Washington on July 26, 2023.Wei Wu/The Epoch Times

“Our mission,” says Adam Andrzejewski, “is not only to open the books and audit them, but also to educate the American people on where your tax dollar is being spent. I encourage everybody to visit OpenTheBooks.com. We have nearly every dime taxed and spent by government across the entire country on our website. I’m talking federal spending, all 50 state checkbooks, and 15,000 municipality checkbooks right down to your local school district.”

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek and Mr. Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenThe Books.com, discuss the royalty connection between big pharma and big government, monies given to China and Russia, and the billions slated for earmarked projects by members of Congress. In the full online interview, the two men also look at the militarization of our federal agencies and the enormous sums they spend on weapons.

Jan Jekielek: What’s the status of royalty payouts with the National Institutes of Health (NIH)?

Adam Andrzejewski: In fall 2021, our organization filed a Federal Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request with the NIH for their third-party royalty database. A third-party royalty is paid by a pharmaceutical company to the NIH for an invention by a U.S. government scientist in a government lab, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. They invent something, then they license it to the private sector to monetize the invention. A royalty is paid back to the agency in a split with the scientist. We wanted a copy of that database.

That database would tell us just how close big government was with big pharma. When the NIH ignored our FOIA request, we sued them with Judicial Watch as our legal partner, and we opened up that database—3,000 pages over a decade, with over 50,000 payments to 2,400 scientists.

But we can only see the top line summary numbers. $325 million was paid from the industry to the agency, its leadership, and its scientists, enriching them. Here’s what we can’t see. NIH is still redacting the name of the third-party payer—think pharmaceutical company. We don’t know who paid over $300 million worth of royalties. We don’t know the amount paid to the individual scientists or what they invented in the taxpayer paid labs. Every one of those third-party royalty payments is a potential conflict of interest.

Mr. Jekielek: Let’s go next to China and Russia and the $1.3 billion spent over the last five years. Can you offer a few interesting tidbits that you found?

Mr. Andrzejewski: Here’s just one example. $1.4 million was for a domestic farm commodities program for U.S. school districts to feed K-12 students. But it wasn’t done domestically. $1.4 million went to a Chinese entity to supply America’s K-12 schools with a Chinese agriculture commodity.

It doesn’t get any better with our payments to Russian entities. For example, we paid $24 million to a Russian contractor to do security for our embassies and $600,000 to Russian companies to move our confidential intelligence briefing pouch. Do you think Putin has an American contractor securing his diplomatic pouch? Not a chance, but that’s what we do in Russia.

Mr. Jekielek: Let’s jump into your earmarks report. Please give us a quick overview.

Mr. Andrzejewski: An earmark is a pet project requested by members of Congress for their district. People have described it with words like pork and the earmark favor factory. Others have described it as legal bribery to attract member votes to big spending bills.

Earmarks were banned for 10 years. Now that they’ve been restored, it’s the equivalent of an open bar for a bunch of alcoholics. Republicans and Democrats are addicted to spending taxpayer money, and earmarks grease the process.

Mr. Jekielek: But wouldn’t we expect members of Congress to support their districts or states?

Mr. Andrzejewski: Earmarks are an end run around the appropriations process in Congress. They circumvent the process of a line and budget bill going through committee and subcommittee hearings, a full and public vetting on every line of that legislation, and votes in those committees until it reaches the floor. Then you get an up or down vote.

An earmark is different. They’re vaguely worded, and there’s thousands of them. It’s hard to scrutinize them, but there’s no public purpose, for example, in compelling taxpayers in Arkansas to fund a $3 million New York earmark for Columbia University, which already has a $13.3 billion endowment. You get all kinds of these unnecessary pork projects.

Mr. Jekielek: You found other things as well.

Mr. Andrzejewski: We did. Here’s one example. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Democrat Patrick Leahy, was retiring. He earmarked $30 million to the University of Vermont for their Honors College. After he retired in May, the college renamed the Honors College after Senator Leahy. He also received a permanent position as a presidential fellow at the university. He earmarked $34 million for the Burlington International Airport, and in April the city council renamed the airport after him.

Leahy’s colleague, Republican Richard Shelby, is also retiring. He earmarked $50 million to his alma mater, the University of Alabama. The $50 million earmark went into their endowment, where they already had a billion dollars. This was for a school that pays its football coach $11 million a year.

Nine members of the Republican Freedom Caucus, who are known as fiscally conservative, earmarked 72 projects for $490 million, and the situation is only getting worse. Breaking news yesterday was that the top 63 earmarkers for 2024 in the House are Republicans.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy needs to call a public vote in the House so we can see who’s in and who’s out on earmarks. McCarthy doesn’t take earmarks, but he allowed the secret vote for the last two years. Who thought this was a good idea?

It’s a target-rich environment in Washington, D.C. for a watchdog.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.