After George Soros’s Open Society Foundations announced a $300 million, five-year commitment to defend civil liberties, Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) was not impressed.
“The Soros network is scared,” he told National Desk reporter Geoff Harris.
“When the Soros network and other dark money networks say that they’re ‘defending democracy’ or doing some sort of civil rights activity, that can also translate into protest actions. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of this kind of “No Kings stuff” going into the midterms,” Bruner said.
The OSF announcement is the group’s first large US-focused initiative since Alex Soros assumed leadership of the organization from his father George. The group says the money will fund projects that will “improve the daily lives of Americans and stand up for the rule of law.”
GAI has investigated the funding activities of several large, left-leaning sources including OSF, Arabella Advisors, and the Tides network. At the White House roundtable last September on Antifa that was moderated by President Trump, Bruner told the President directly that dark money from these sources has found its way into violent protest activity by Antifa and other far-left groups, who were paid for getting these protests organized. Trump’s Attorney General Todd Blanche announced recently that the Justice department is actively investigating whether these ostensibly charitable organizations are in fact funding unrest and fomenting violence in American cities.
OSF told reporters they know of no active DOJ investigation against it, telling the National News Desk it is aware of nothing beyond what has appeared in public reporting.
“Since the Trump administration began taking this seriously, I give a shout-out to the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a lot of actions to look into these opaque funding networks,” Bruner told The National Desk.
Last year, GAI did deep research into the funding sources and money flows behind often violent anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Minneapolis. GAI found organizations that received large contributions from OSF, the Tides Foundation, Arabella Advisors (which is now defunct) and others. While those funds were awarded for legitimate purposes, as they noted in the reporting, money is fungible.
