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Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros is heavily backing the leftist challenger for the Los Angeles district attorney’s job. Campaign documents show that the 90-year-old Soros recently dumped an additional $1.5 million into the campaign of George Gascon, the Cuban-born former San Francisco DA. Soros has now contributed $2.5 million into Gascon’s campaign.
Gascon is running against Jackie Lacey, the current DA, who has been in office since 2012. Lacey is the first black woman to serve in the office. At issue in the campaign are the leftist canards of “criminal justice reform,” “systemic racism” in the DA’s office, and police brutality.
“The infusion of dark money in these races, usually in the final months before a primary or general election, makes a huge impact,” wrote Michele Hanisee, president of the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys. “District Attorney elections are typically minimally funded, local races. This last minute spending by these PAC’s leaves opponents with scant time to raise a corresponding amount of cast to respond.”
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Why would a New York-based billionaire care about a district attorney race clear across the country?
A quick check of candidate endorsements answers that question. Gascon is endorsed by socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, far-left California Governor Gavin Newsom, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the California Democrat Party, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and, most importantly of all, the Marxist group Black Lives Matter.
Among the groups backing Lacey are the California State Conference of the NAACP, the California Bail Agents Association, and Human Rights Watch.
Although Black Lives Matter does not officially endorse candidates, they’ve made it clear that they want Lacey, a Democrat, out of the District Attorney’s office. Lacey first drew the ire of Black Lives Matter following the death of 25-year-old Ezell Ford. Ford was shot to death after tackling a police officer and reaching for the officer’s gun.
Black Lives Matter claims that they’ve tried to work with Lacey to clean up the so-called systemic racism that they believe exists in Los Angeles County law enforcement. According to one BLM founder, Lacey has not been receptive to their wishes.
“We’ve tried everything with her,” said Black Lives Matter-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah. “We had a deep desire to have things be different.”
While many see Lacey as a victim’s rights advocate, Abdulla claims that Lacey’s advocacy does not extend to victims of so-called police violence.
“That’s the general approach to victims of police violence,” Abdullah claimed. “When you’re killed by police, you’re not considered a victim.”
Gascon was a Los Angeles cop for 20 years, rising to the level of assistant chief of police before leaving to become the chief of the Mesa, Arizona, police department. He was widely credited with helping to restore the department’s image while he served as a training officer in the wake of the Rampart scandal in the early 2000s. He left Mesa in 2009 to become San Francisco’s police chief before being appointed district attorney by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Gascon’s record in San Francisco is a checkered one. Under his leadership, property crimes in San Francisco jumped by nearly 50 percent. San Francisco had the highest rate of property crime in the state. Violent crime was 54 percent above the rest of California and 84-percent higher than the national average.
Gascon is also one of the principal authors of California’s Proposition 47, also known as the “Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Initiative Statute.” That law, approved by voters in 2014, effectively reduced certain theft, drug, and other “non-violent” felonies down to misdemeanors. Gascon also co-authored Proposition 57, which allows parole boards to release certain “non-violent” offenders early based on good behavior. Among the “non-violent” crimes included in Prop 57 are rape by intoxication of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex acts with a minor, and arson.
Soros is engaged in a war against law enforcement. He has funded efforts to replace law-and-order district attorneys with more “progressive” candidates in more than a dozen states. Soros dumped $2 million into the Maricopa County, Arizona, race, which saw long-time incumbent Joe Arpaio lose to leftist Paul Penzone. This anti-police fervor we see in America currently is, at least in part, due to efforts by Soros to devalue law and order in America by accusing law enforcement of “systemic racism.”
Lacey, although a Democrat, represents the side that is pro-police. Gascon represents the anti-police side, which includes those who wish to defund the police. It’s only a local election while the presidency and the Congress are grabbing a great deal of attention. But this local race could be among America’s most important in 2020.
