Sali Berisha, the 32nd Prime Minister and 2nd President of Albania, just put out a press release stating that the Paris Court (Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris) accepted his lawsuit against U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for defamation.
The press release reads as follows:
I filed this lawsuit after the Secretary of State, on May 19, 2021, announced his decision to declare me and my family members non-grata for “significant corruption.” This decision is based on misinformation from the corrupt lobbying of Prime Minister Edi Rama and his protector George Soros, with whom I have had substantial disagreements.
That decision – rendered without any evidence, fact, or document, unexpected, entirely political, and unique – came eight years after I resigned from any leadership position and every public executive function and three weeks after the candidate I supported lost the election.
In addition, during thirty years of my career, I have never been charged or investigated for any form of corruption. No one has ever filed a lawsuit or proven any allegations of corruption in a court of law against me or any of my family members.
Expressing my confidence in the court of law and awaiting the commencement of the trial, I invite the Secretary of State to present to the court any evidence, fact, or document to prove the allegations on which he has based his groundless decision to declare me non-grata. Sali Berisha
This comes just days after I reported on Blinken’s family connections to George Soros. To provide some needed background to anyone who missed that; back May Blinken announced sanctions against Berisha alleging “significant corruption,” and banned him, his wife, and his children from entering the U.S.
Berisha has insisted there is “zero evidence” behind the corruption allegations, asserting the U.S. ban was based on misinformation from outlets backed by Soros. He told the Washington Times in June; “It is my deep conviction that this declaration against me has been based entirely on misinformation that Mr. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has gotten from a corrupted lobby process involving Edi Rama and George Soros, who are close friends. They have no evidence. None at all.”
Responsible for providing the facts on Berisha’s alleged corruption to the Department of State is the East-West Management Institute, a Soros-sponsored group. The Institute is headed by a woman named Delina Fico who has the job title of Director of Civil Society. Fico was once engaged to Edi Rama, and later married Bledi Çuçi, one of Rama’s closest allies.
Blinken himself has family connections to Soros. Antony’s father Donald Blinken and his wife Vera funded the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Soros’ Central European University (a University Soros founded), which houses a digital collection of Hungarian historical documents. The trio has also been photographed together. In one Soros Foundations Network report from 2002, Blinken’s father is listed on the Board of Trustees for Central European University third after Soros (the chair) and Aryeh Neier.
It’s doubtful that the apple fell far from the tree – after Blinken was confirmed as Secretary of State, Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet called it “great news for George Soros.”
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
