Think Tanks Receiving Funds From Foreign Government Sponsors

Borge Brende, the foreign minister of Norway, in June at the Brookings Institution in Washington. 
Photo: CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

Is this one more reason to be skeptical of "scientific studies" and academic "experts?"

[From article] The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.
But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.
It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.
[. . .]
“It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=0

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks
By ERIC LIPTON, BROOKE WILLIAMS and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
SEPT. 6, 2014
New York Times