Dispatch Denies Bill Gates Controls Global Fund, Global Fund Disagrees
- Dispatch Fact Check says Gates does not control Global Fund, yet Global Fund website admits Gates and Gates Foundation are active partners on their governing boards
- Himmelman tries to split hairs by fact-checking whether or not Global Fund is Bill Gates’ foundation, ignores major context to the story
- Himmelman refuses to acknowledge a reasonable and relevant connection to Gates and the Global Fund
OUR RATING: Trash Journalism, aka the Daily Beast.
Indicted Outlet: Khaya Himmelman | The Dispatch | Link | Archive
Khaya Himmelman in the Dispatch attempts to disprove an article claiming Bill Gates is connected to the Global Fund. But the Fund’s own website makes clear that the Gates Foundation is a partner that takes a significant role in their operations with control over their boards of directors.
Himmelman left out this important context, and does her readers a serious disservice.
Major Violations:
- Misrepresentation
- Irrelevant/Nitpicking
- Superficial Investigation
Himmelman claims that there is no connection between the Gates’s charitable foundation and the Global Fund, who is set to receive $3.5 billion from the government in a coronavirus relief package. In order to obscure this connection, Himmelman misrepresents and nitpicks the connection to “prove” that the claim is false. Furthermore, she fact checks a red herring; the article never claims the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation received the money, only that a foundation Gates heavily funds received the relief money.
The first issue in this fact check is that Himmelman understates, and thereby misrepresents, the connection between the Gates and the Global fund. This is necessary to make her claim valid. The factual claim made within the opinion is that the last few pages of the $1.9 trillion CCP Virus relief package “[earmarks] at least $3.5 billion to a globalist foundation funded by multibillionaire Bill Gates.” [1] Himmelman claims it is false: “the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not receive money nor were they named in the bill.”
The clause of the relief package states that “not less than $3,500,000,000 shall be for a United States contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria” [2]
The fact-checked article makes an erroneous claim that “the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is described as a “key partner” on Page 613 of the Democrats’ 628-page relief bill.” The Gates foundation is not mentioned in the bill, Himmelman is correct in pointing that out.
However, the author makes a perfectly reasonable connection between the Foundation and the Global Fund actually mentioned in the relief package. The phrase “key partner” actually comes from Global Fund’s own website [3] that states:
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a key partner of the Global Fund, providing cash contributions, [and] actively participating on its board and committees…The Gates Foundation has contributed $2.49 billion to the Global Fund to date, and pledged $760 million for the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment, covering 2020-2022. [emphasis added].”
The original author is totally reasonable in drawing a connection between Gates and the Global Fund, just on the basis of this website admission by the Global Fund.
Even Vox.com, a liberal website[4], explicitly attributes the beginning of the Global Fund to the Gates Foundation:
“The formation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is a similar story: the Gateses played a convening and angel-funding role in putting together an organization that would eventually subsist on funding from governments.”
According to the Gates Foundation, the Global Fund was launched “with an initial contribution of $750 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” [5] [6]
Himmelman omits the size and reach of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization that uses foundations such as the Global Fund to increase their reach across the globe.
According to Jacob Levich in Issue 57 in Aspects of India’s Economy: The Gates Foundation exercises power not only via its own spending, but more broadly through an elaborate network of “partner organizations” including non-profits, government agencies, and private corporations…Vastly endowed, essentially unaccountable, unencumbered by respect for democracy or national sovereignty, floating freely between the public and private spheres, it is ideally positioned to intervene swiftly and decisively on behalf of the interests it represents. As Bill Gates remarked, “I’m not gonna get voted out of office.”’ [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Himmelman is right about this one detail, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not receive $3.5 billion, rather they participated in the Global Fund foundation’s startup and continue to heavily fund the organization that they helped start and continue to control. Himmelman nitpicking the author’s opinion leads her to make an irrelevant distinction between the Global Fund and the Fund’s primary contributor, and also to misstate the original source material in the first place.
The Gates Foundation is the primary driver behind the Global Fund, so in effect the bill is giving money to Gates control. Himmelman ignores this in the article she fact checks, and instead goes for the easier claim to check: whether the Foundation directly received funds from the relief bill. But this was never the claim made in the article—the author said that the Global Fund was in effect Bill Gates’ organization, an entirely different claim.
Tying the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Global Fund is perfectly reasonable. This is how elite politically-minded billionaires operate: through a network of influence and control and not merely through the one Foundation that bears their name. Manage several slush funds through charitable organizations so that you cannot be held directly responsible and then have sloppy fact checkers destroy any articles tying you to the fund.
The facts exist to make a reasonable connection between Gates and the Global Fund, but Himmelman’s superficial investigation into the matter leads her to make an overly simplistic and uninformed claim that falls below the standard of journalistic integrity.
OUR RATING: Trash Journalism, aka the Daily Beast.
Bibliography:
2] https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr1319/BILLS-117hr1319eas.pdf
4] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/11/21133298/bill-gates-melinda-gates-money-foundation
6] https://www.spearswms.com/the-12-biggest-bill-gates-donations/
7] https://liberationschool.org/real-agenda-gates-foundation/
8] https://www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/ghw2.pdf From Levich:” In a 2008 memo leaked to the press, Arata Kochi, chief of the malaria program at the World Health Organization, charged that “the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the health agency’s policy-making function.” Donald G. McNeil Jr., “WHO official complains about Gates Foundation’s dominance in malaria fight,” NY Times, Nov. 7, 2008”
9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/12/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation
11] https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/bill-gates-investments-covid/
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