Judicial Watch Sues State Dept for Records on Grants to Left-Wing European NGOs

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State for records on contracts, grants, and communications with several left-wing European non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:26-cv-00346)).

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the State Department failed to respond to a November 2025 FOIA request for all contracts and grant agreements from January 2016 to November 2025 connected to the organizations Free Courts (Wolne Sądy), the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, DemoCrisis, and Ökotárs Alapítvány (Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation), as well as all associated communications of State Department officials. 

According to the Open Society Foundations’ website, the Free Courts Foundation received a $130,000 grant in 2023. The organization lists the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy as a partner organization on its website. Polish lawyer Michał Wawrykiewicz, who co-founded Free Courts, is on the board of DemoCrisis which was founded in 2023 and is an umbrella organization of non-government organizations (NGOs) in Israel, Poland and Hungary.

The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (LibertiesEU), which was spun off from Open Society Foundations and received approximately 40% of its funding from the organization. LibertiesEU has been aggressive in its campaign against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The Hungarian Environmental Partnership received $306,000 from the Open Society Foundations between 2017 and 2022. One of the projects the organization funds was also supported by the U.S. Embassy Budapest’s Free Media Grant Program. Earlier this year, a reportfound U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to help fund this program; however, the funds mainly went to organizations that are critical of the Hungarian government.  

“Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being used to fund foreign, left-wing organizations that have a pattern of anti-freedom and anti-American policies,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The State Department has failed to provide these records, leaving the public in the dark.” 

Judicial Watch has led the effort to expose how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to finance left-wing, anti-American non-profits that are supported by George Soros, filing multiple FOIA lawsuits relating to funding for these Soros-backed operations. 

In March 2025, Judicial Watch sued the State Department for records on grants made by the Biden State Department to various Hungarian media outlets and educational organizations opposing conservative Orban.

In October 2018, Judicial Watch obtained State Department documents showing top Soros representatives in Romania collaborating with the State Department in a program jointly funded by, among others, Soros’ Open Society Foundations – Romania and USAID, called the “Open Government Partnership.”

Additional State Department records uncovered in October 2018 showed U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for George Soros’ 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 Orban called 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.

In April 2018, Judicial Watch uncovered records showing the Obama administration sent U.S. taxpayers’ funds to a group backed by Soros, which used the money to fund left-wing political activities in Albania, including working with the country’s socialist government to push for highly controversial judicial “reform.” The records also detail how the Soros operation helped the State Department review grant applications from other groups for taxpayer funding.

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