Palast's Palimpsest, II. posted by Richard Seymour

Follow-up to this post.

Incensed by some of the transparent gibberish uttered by US investigative journalist Greg Palast about George Galloway on his website a couple of days ago, a commenter on MediaLens got in contact with a person called Lena in his office. He got some curious responses, among them, an attempt to clear up the "missing million" claim. To recap, Palast claimed that Galloway had not accounted for $1 million and that the Charities Commission - whose full findings he claimed to have read - 'excoriated' Galloway for not accounting for that missing money. Further, he actually went on to say that Galloway had mis-spent the missing money.

The correspondent cited an article in The Times as saying that Galloway had reported £1 million raised by the Mariam Appeal, but "has yet to account publicly for about £625,000". Two problems instantly emerge. Palast claimed his source was the Charities Commission, which is obviously a more reliable source than a British newspaper with a well-known hostility to Galloway. That was not and coult not have been his source. He can't have even read the findings. The second trouble is with the article, in that it is stored away in subscription-only, and you have to do a Lexis-Nexis search to find it. After a bit of hoking around I discovered what Palast was prattling on about.

The article was from April 23rd, the day before the Charities Commission began its investigation into the Mariam Appeal. Palast's source is therefore outdated, to say the least. The Charities Commission subsequently held an investigation and exonerated Galloway and the Appeal. It did not indicate that he had not accounted for any sums of money. It did not "excoriate" Mr Galloway for failing to account for $1 million or £625,000 or any such sum, as Palast claimed. The Commission was satisfied that none of the monies raised had been misused and that there was no bad faith. In other words, Palast is relying on one unsubstantiated claim made in a British newspaper in 2003 before an investigation was carried out that cleared Galloway of wrongdoing, and he further relies on that story to claim that the Charities Commission - whose findings he has read in full - rebukes Galloway for not accounting for that sum in the course of their investigations, which they do not.

Unto all of which, this heap of scorn is thoroughly deserved.