Notorious left-wing power broker George Soros has continued to be one of the most important figures financially responsible for the anti-police movement in America.
According to a new review of tax records conducted by Fox News, Soros’ Open Society Foundations network contributed approximately $35 million to initiatives and groups dedicated to attacking the institution of local police.
This isn’t surprising given Soros’ publicly known desire to completely reshape the criminal justice system, which has led him in recent years to place high priority on funding organizations whose work aligns with that mission.
The recipients of Soros cash have been involved in projects such as activism to abolish law enforcement, persuading the public to support cutting funding to police, and the creation of databases that keep track of police unions and foundations.
In just one example of Soros’ anti-police “philanthropy,” his Open Society Policy Center gave $15 million to the Tides Advocacy for the Electoral Justice Project, per tax forms obtained by Fox News. The project is led by The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), which is itself a coalition of over 50 Black Lives Matter (BLM)-aligned groups that share a vision of defunding the police and radically transforming law enforcement across the country.
On its website, M4BL said last year that it would award $75,000 “to 12 Black-led ORGANIZATIONS that are expanding democracy and building political power in defense of Black lives.”
The group is known for supporting murderers of police officers, notably rallying behind Sundiata Acoli, who killed N.J. State Trooper Werner Foerster during a traffic stop in 1973, demanding his release from prison.
Then there’s a $10 million donation by the Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS), also part of the Soros network, to Borealis Philanthropy for its Black-Led Movement Fund — which also bankrolls the Movement for Black Lives.
Additionally, FPOS dropped $10.75 million into Borealis earmarked for its Communities Transforming Policing Fund (CTPF) in order to further “community-based police reform campaigns.”
CTPF’s website states that last year it donated $5.2 million to 55 organizations in 21 states. It further gave almost $4 million in grants to 26 organizations early this year.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society also gifted $1.75 million to the New Venture Fund to bolster its Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability, which supports the anti-police movement by fostering resources for left-wing activists. That sum comes after the foundation gave the hub $4.5 million in 2019 and 2020.
As The New American has previously reported, the New Venture Fund gives the groups it houses its tax and legal status, meaning projects under its umbrella are not required to file IRS tax forms that would disclose information such as board members and financials. Thus it is one of the Left’s notable sources of dark money.
Other major anti-police expenditures by Soros: $500,000 in support of a failed ballot initiative to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public safety agency; $500,000 to the Equity PAC to stop the city of Austin, Texas, from “unnecessarily” increasing the “hiring of new police officers”; and $200,000 to the Austin Justice Coalition to “educate the public about policing, the influence of police unions, and ways to keep communities safe without relying on the police.”
There was also a notable $200,000 donation from FPOS in support of a project known as “The Prometheus Conspiracy.” According to tax forms, the money was given with the aim of creating a searchable national database of “charitable contributions to police department foundations and police unions or police associations.”
Caitlin Sutherland, who serves as executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told Fox News: “Not only has billionaire George Soros spent millions propping up pro-crime prosecutors, but now we’ve learned he’s spent the last year bankrolling efforts to defund the police as well.”
Laleh Ispahani, co-director of Open Society-U.S., provided a statement to Fox defending the organization’s efforts:
The Open Society Foundations is proud to have been one of the earliest and most robust supporters of efforts to address the issues of crime and public safety while protecting freedoms that Americans hold dear. We have supported reforms to our criminal justice system that enjoy broad support across the political spectrum. We believe that our freedoms are threatened when state actors are above the law, and that accountability is even more essential when they are given the right to use force on behalf of the government.
The level of police violence, particularly impacting communities of color, has spurred reform efforts across the country. Open Society supports the exploration and development of policies that actually work to reduce crime and defers to communities regarding what alternatives make sense to them. Whether that includes shifting funding currently allocated to policing into services that actually work to address crime and improve public safety is up to them.
Leftists may make it a standard talking point to decry billionaires, but they certainly have no qualms about taking billionaires’ money when it suits them.
