For the last several years, billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been quietly financing a revolution in criminal justice reform, doling out tens of millions of dollars to progressive candidates in district attorney races throughout the country amid movements to abolish bail and defund the police.
Working with an activist attorney, Soros, 91, mainly funnels cash through a complicated web of federal and state political action committees as well as non-profits from coast to coast, public records show.
Last year, the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a nonprofit in Soros’ orbit, gave $3 million to the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability, according to a recent report. The group provides resources to “local advocates and organizations working to address the harm of policing in the US.”
Hungarian-born philanthropist Soros and his Open Society group of non-profits have mainly doled out cash to political action campaigns controlled by attorney and criminal justice reform activist Whitney Tymas, 60. She is the treasurer of the Justice and Safety PAC as well as 20 other similarly named groups at both the state and federal levels, according to public filings.
The goal of the myriad PACs is focused on electing progressives to end tough policing and mass incarceration, according to Tymas. “If we are to reach a place of true progress, it will take the sustained efforts of local elected prosecutors across the country to rectify and reimagine their role in the criminal legal system — not just as gatekeepers, but as active catalysts for change,” wrote Tymas in an opinion article last year. Chicago’s Kim Foxx was Soros’ first success, contributing $300,000 to her first campaign in 2016, and another $2 million for her successful re-election run last month. Chicago’s Kim Foxx was Soros’ first success, contributing $300,000 to her first campaign in 2016, and another $2 million for her successful re-election run last month. AP
Her efforts coupled with Soros’ largesse have played an outsize role in some of the most controversial district attorney campaigns in the US, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles as well as Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Kim Foxx in Chicago, among others. Soros also donated $1 million to Alvin Bragg’s successful DA campaign in Manhattan, funneling the cash through the Color of Change political action committee, according to public filings.
“George Soros has quietly orchestrated the dark money political equivalent of ‘shock and awe,’ on local attorney races through the country, shattering records, flipping races and essentially making a mockery of our entire campaign finance system,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia. (Calls to Soros’ camp went unreturned on Thursday.)
Between 2015 and 2019, Soros and his affiliated political action committees spent more than $17 million on local DA races in support of left-wing candidates, according to the Capital Research Center, a non-profit that tracks lobbying and charitable giving. That number is expected to top $20 million in the last two years, according to estimates from the NLPC. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose parents were members of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group, wants to end mass incarceration and cash bail, earning Soros' campaign dollars. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose parents were members of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group, wants to end mass incarceration and cash bail, earning Soros’ campaign dollars. AP
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this where federal election level money and resources are brought to bear and coordinated to effectively flip local level races where campaign finance restrictions make it almost impossible to counter,” said Anderson, adding that conservative opponents are hamstrung by local campaign finance laws that Soros doesn’t have to abide by because he is using independent expenditures and not directly coordinating with the campaigns.
Critics say the policies of Soros-funded DAs, which have included abolishing bail and, in the case of Chicago, placing hundreds of violent criminals on electronic tracking systems, have led to a spike in crime throughout the country. According to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report released in September, the country saw a 30 percent increase in homicides in 2020 — the largest single-year spike since they began recording crime statistics 60 years ago. The report also saw a 24 percent decrease in arrests across the country.
This year, Philadelphia, a city of 1.5 million, had more homicides than New York and Los Angeles, the country’s two largest cities. The city recorded 521 homicides — the highest since 1990 — compared to 443 in New York and 352 in Los Angeles. Chicago, the country’s third largest city, registered the highest number of homicides at 739, up three percent from the previous year.
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