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Democratic Georgia Senate candidate John Ossoff's company was paid thousands of dollars for documentaries that it licensed to Al Jazeera, the controversial media company owned by Qatar, according to the candidate's financial disclosure forms.
Ossoff disclosed the payment in a July update to his forms that included income for Insight TWI, the company that he is the managing director and CEO of. Insight TWI on the form is listed as a "broadcast media production" company. Transactions reported on the form were all over $5,000.
Insight TWI produces investigative journalism, often in the form of documentaries, which are then licensed out to other companies that broadcast the content.
Ossoff's opponent, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., has hammered Ossoff on another payment his company accepted that was disclosed in the July form, which was from PCCW Limited. PCCW Limited is a Hong Kong-based media company that the Chinese government is an 18.4% shareholder in through the Chinese state-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission.
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Jon Ossoff speaks during a news conference on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, in Atlanta. He is facing Republican Sen. David Perdue, a top Trump ally, in a Jan. 5, 2021 runoff. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
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PCCW's chairman, Richard Li, opposes the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. In 2016, according to the Hong Kong Free Press, PCCW's parent company issued a statement that it opposes Hong Kong's independence.
"Mr. Li and the Company are staunchly opposed to the independence of Hong Kong and it is their view that the independence of Hong Kong would not be feasible, and discussing Hong Kong’s independence is a waste of society’s resources," the statement published by the Hong Kong Free Press said.
The Ossoff campaign disowned the PCCW stance on democracy in Hong Kong and condemned the Chinese Communist Party.
"Jon strongly supports Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and condemns the brutality and authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party," Ossoff spokesperson Miryan Lipper said in a statement.
Lipper also claimed that the documentaries run by PCCW were first licensed to the London-based company SKY Vision as a distributor.
"In some instances, as is the case with PCCW, TWI even licenses the documentaries to distributors like Sky Vision who then work with the stations and license directly to them," Lipper said.
What this means, according to the Ossoff campaign, is that nobody at Ossoff's company would have interfaced directly with PCCW, partially undercutting the Perdue talking point that Ossoff has worked with the PCCW and by extension the Chinese government.
This, however, does not change the fact that Insight TWI accepted money from PCCW as reported on Ossoff's disclosures.
The payment from Al Jazeera is another controversial source of income for Insight TWI. The Qatari-owned media firm has often been the subject of harsh criticism over the years.
Jon Ossoff (Left) and Sen. David Perdue (Right) are locked in a tight race for Perdue's Georgia U.S. Senate seat. (Facebook/AP)
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The controversy around the outlet in the English-speaking world started with the fact that it aired videos of Al-Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden in the wake of 9/11. It continued afterward and extends to as recently as 2019 when the outlet aired a video questioning the focus on Jewish people killed in the Holocaust and saying, "The narrative that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi movement was adopted by the Zionist movement."
The video was taken down and Al Jazeera digital executive director Yaser Bishr said the network "completely disowns the offensive content in question" and informed staffers of new mandatory bias and sensitivity training.
Israel even moved to ban Al Jazeera in 2017, according to the Associated Press, with then-Communications Minister Ayoob Kara saying the Qatar-owned entity "supports terrorism, supports religious radicalization."
But Al Jazeera and PCCW were just two among 32 disclosures made on Ossoff's form in regards to Insight TWI's income. Also on the form were far less controversial networks including AMC Networks Digital Group in New York City, BBC and SKY Vision in London, and companies from Brazil to the Netherlands to Norway to Australia.
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And the films produced by Insight TWI are not regime propaganda, but rather independent journalism decided on by Insight TWI then later licensed to other companies. The films aired by PCCW, for example, were about ISIS. Some of the documentaries aired by Al Jazeera, on the other hand, were titled "Latin America Investigates" and "Living with Ebola."
Nevertheless, the Insight TWI did receive payments from these companies, which the Perdue campaign says shows "abysmal judgment."
"From the Chinese communist government to Al Jazeera, Jon Ossoff's personal foreign film company has partnered with some of the most unsavory individuals and organizations imaginable," Perdue campaign spokesman John Burke said in a statement. "He's shown abysmal judgment, working with China’s Communist government who failed to contain COVID-19 -- a fact that he tried to hide from voters -- and a company known as a 'mouthpiece for terrorists.' How can Georgians trust him to stand up to China and America's enemies while he’s being paid by them?"
The Ossoff campaign, however, has defended the fact his company's documentaries aired on PCCW and Al Jazeera and said it is perhaps even more important that those companies air such films to their audiences.
"TV stations and distributors based in 33 countries have licensed and aired Jon’s work, which has exposed corrupt officials, organized crime, and war criminals," Lipper said. "His company’s productions have been aired worldwide — from the United States to Europe to Asia to the Middle East — and high-quality investigative journalism is even more vital in parts of the world where transparency and freedom of the press are under attack."
The Perdue-Ossoff runoff race is one of two U.S. Senate runoffs set for Jan. 5 in Georgia, with the other one between Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.
Both races have turned into food fights as campaigns ferociously attack each other with control of the U.S. Senate in the next Congress on the line.
Some of the more radical plans supported by some Democratic senators -- like packing the Supreme Court and getting rid of the legislative filibuster -- appear to be off the table at least for the next two years with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., saying he would not support such efforts.
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But with President-elect Biden entering office in January the stakes remain high. Biden's ambitious legislative agenda includes adding a public health care option to the Affordable Care Act, rolling back the 2017 tax cuts and more. Also at stake is the Senate GOP's ability to have a say in Biden's appointments to his administration and the judiciary.
"In order for the Biden Administration to succeed in fighting this virus and investing in economic recovery, we need legislative solutions, not obstructionism," Ossoff said in a tweet Wednesday. "That’s why this election is crucial."
If Republicans win even one of the Jan. 5 runoffs they will secure a majority and another two years for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as the majority leader. If Democrats sweep the races, however, they will bring the body to a 50-50 tie, allowing Vice President-elect Harris to break ties on party-line votes.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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