Hollywood star George Clooney has downplayed claims that the foundation he funds with his wife, Amal, is planning to seek the arrest of “Russian propagandists.”
The actor was responding to remarks by Anna Neistat, legal director of The Docket, a unit focused on journalism sponsored by the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ). Neistat, who is Soviet-born, has held senior positions in Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In an interview last week with the Russian-language version of the US government-funded media outlet Voice of America, Neistat claimed her team is working to secure arrest warrants for Russian media professionals for alleged “incitement to genocide” in Ukraine and is seeking a nation willing to prosecute Russians based on “propaganda of aggressive war.”
“Someone in our foundation misspoke,” read a short message on Monday issued on the foundation’s social media and attributed to Clooney.
“We at the Clooney Foundation would never go after journalists, even if we disagree with them,” the actor added, after noting that his father, Nick, works in the media. “We have a long track record of protecting journalists.”
Neistat claimed The Docket could make travel more difficult for targeted individuals and that it seeks a nation with the “political will” to secretly issue arrest warrants, so that Russian journalists would “travel to other nations and be arrested there.”
The Clooney Foundation's executive's remarks were hailed by senior Ukrainian officials. Andrey Yermak, the chief of staff to Vladimir Zelensky, called the comments “very important” and said they were aligned with Kiev’s aims to sanction “Russian propagandists.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed The Docket’s legal team as “lunatics” for targeting journalists. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Sunday said the foundation had effectively confessed to “hounding” media professionals with an “ethnically motivated criminal prosecution” campaign.