Sean Penn started his Haiti charity/foundation JPHRO shortly after the massive earthquake in 2010. Some say Penn was doing penance for all of his years of douchebaggery. Some say he was inspired to give back after his son survived a bad accident. Some say Sean always had a compassionate side and this was just the latest example. And some said he just absorbed himself in the cause of the moment, and he would forget about it soon enough. Sean lived for a time in Haiti, but he’s back to living full time in LA and wherever he has to go on location for film shoots. But his JPHRO is still raising money for Haitians, and Sean throws a now-annual fundraiser for his foundation. Last month’s star-studded fundraiser raised $6 million for JPHRO.

But I’ve always wondered how much of the JPHRO money actually makes it to Haiti. Penn started the foundation from scratch, and I always assumed the start-up costs and administrative costs must have been significant. That’s the thing about starting your own charity versus simply attaching your name to an already-established charity: it’s all on you to get a significant amount of the money raised to the actual people in need. Well, a Haitian filmmaker named Raoul Peck has made a documentary called Fatal Assistance, and Peck claims that “only a fraction” of the $9 billion pledged to Haiti has actually made it to Haiti or the Haitian people. It’s an indictment of many of the failed charity schemes and half-hearted attempts to help, especially since 350,000 Haitians are still homeless or living in makeshift camps all these years later.

So, obviously, Page Six contacted Sean Penn to see if he would comment on Peck’s film. Here’s what Sean had to say:

“Peck is confusing the funds committed by international donors (foreign governments) in 2010 with the tangible and provable monies raised by JPHRO and others spent to extraordinary effect. His simplification of criticism echoes strategies once used by tyrants and Nazis, and its only result can be that which is injurious to the extraordinary people of Haiti. Self-serving critics like Peck are Haiti’s greatest enemy.”

[From Page Six]

Here’s the thing: I think there probably is a worthy investigation to be done into how much money actually reached the Haitians. There’s also a worthy investigation to be done into which of these little Haitian-charity start-ups are actually working on any level. And if Penn had simply said that “there is confusion” about which funds are which and what is actually working, I would have believed him. But he went straight for the Nazi comparison, Godwin’s Law be damned. When your answer to legitimate criticism and questioning is “YOU ARE A NAZI FOR ASKING QUESTIONS,” then I’m sorry, we need to ask those questions.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.