O'Keefe accuses 'corporate press' of underreporting on BlackRock story

James O’Keefe sounded off about the mainstream media after his company, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), released a bombshell video of a BlackRock recruiter saying the Russia-Ukraine war is “good for business” and claiming “you can buy a senator” for $10,000.

Serge Varlay, a recruiter for the multi-trillion dollar asset management firm, told an undercover OMG journalist that hedge funds like BlackRock, can "run the world” by controlling the wallets of politicians like senators and even the president of the United States.

The video, released on Twitter, has been seen nearly 10 million times and has received over 100,000 likes. But despite its explosive virality, search engines like Google appear to be suppressing its reach.

When Just the News searched “BlackRock” on Google, a headline of the exposé didn’t appear until several pages into the news section. Google’s top three “popular” Twitter results were all from two days ago, and two of the three posts linked had only three likes on the social media site.

According to Yahoo Finance, BlackRock is the second-largest institutional shareholder of Google (Alphabet Inc.), owning nearly 366,000,000 shares valued at $44.5 billion.

Google responded to Just The News' inquiry with the following statement.

"We do not change our ranking systems to target one piece of content, and we haven't done so in this case. Our ranking systems apply consistently to all content available online, without regard to political viewpoints."

Google's ranking system specifically states its news algorithm uses "relevance" and "prominence" to provide the "most useful" results.

Speaking to Just the News, O’Keefe Media Group’s founder, James O’Keefe, condemned the “corporate press” for their apparent lack of coverage of the story.

“This is a great example of what those in power will say when they think no one is listening,” said O’Keefe. “The corporate press has reported on BlackRock’s 'investment' into reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. They have a larger budget, more access and sources than I do, but they aren’t reporting this aspect of BlackRock. Why?”

In the rest of the video, Varlay detailed how the Russia-Ukraine war helps BlackRock make money, using exploding grain silos as an example. 

“Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos and the price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is the wheat market. The price of bread goes up, this is fantastic if you’re trading. Volatility creates opportunity for profit,” he said to the journalist. He also said of senators that they’re “cheap” to buy and can be put “in my pocket” for the right price. 

Google has long been accused of manipulating its algorithm to suppress certain stories. RealClearPolitics reported in 2020 that conservative outlets like the Daily Caller and Breitbart experienced a dramatic, sudden drop in website traffic around 2017 and were virtually eliminated from search results around 2020. Internal communications obtained by the Daily Caller in 2018 revealed Google employees have discussed suppressing conservative outlets in its search feature.

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