Getty George Soros and Alvin Bragg.
President Donald Trump, writing on Truth Social, said that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s “leader is funded by George Soros.”
The leader of that office is Alvin Bragg, the Democratic DA who took office in January 2022, according to Ballotpedia. In the Truth Social post, Trump also wrote that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday, and he criticized the prosecutor’s office as being highly political.
Is it true? Was Bragg funded by Soros?
Fox News reported that Soros “funneled $40 million dollars into district attorney campaigns nationwide, and now his beneficiaries represent around 20% of Americans,” including Bragg on that list.
Here’s what you need to know:
Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton Criticized a $1 Million Donation That George Soros Made to a PAC That Supported Bragg
GettyGeorge Soros.
According to The New York Post, former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton spoke out against the “$1 million donation that Hungarian-born philanthropist Soros gave to the Color of Change political action committee, which supported Bragg.”
“If you look at every city in America that has violent crime increases and disorder increases…what is the one common denominator?” Bratton said to The Post. “District attorneys, almost all of whom are funded phenomenally by George Soros.”
The New York Post reported that “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.”
The Gothamist also reported: “Color of Change PAC, a group that since 2016 has successfully backed reform-minded prosecutors across the country from Philadelphia to Michigan to Atlanta, announced they’d be pitching in $1 million dollars through their political action committee to put towards mailers, canvassing, and phone-banking on Bragg’s behalf.”
The National Police Association accused Soros of funding “ultra-leftist prosecutors like Alvin Bragg (New York City), Kim Foxx (Chicago), Larry Krasner (Philadelphia), and George Gascon (Los Angeles),” blaming the trend for rises in violent crime.
Color of Change endorsed Bragg, writing,
Update: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg won the November 2021 general election with over 83% of the vote. He assumed office on January 1, 2022, and his current term ends on January 1, 2026.
Alvin Bragg (D) is an experienced attorney and a former chief deputy attorney general of New York. For over twenty years, Bragg has committed himself to defending the rights of New Yorkers without status or power. He is running to become the next Manhattan District Attorney to bring his professional and lived experiences to the forefront of criminal justice reform. If elected, Bragg would become the first Black District Attorney to lead the Manhattan DA’s office.
As a lifelong Harlem resident and the only Black man in this race, Alvin Bragg has had direct encounters with the criminal legal system that have shaped his understanding of injustices and informed his policy positions.
Growing up in Harlem, Bragg experienced and witnessed violence firsthand. As a teenage boy, Bragg was repeatedly stopped and frisked by the NYPD, including 3 times at gunpoint. He’s seen loved ones arrested and has opened his own home to support a close family member post-incarceration.
The endorsement post, on a page called Voting While Black, reads:
Alvin Bragg uniquely understands the inequities embedded into our broken criminal justice system, and will work to reverse the effects of mass incarceration. As the next Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg has pledged to:
Hold police accountable by creating a specialized unit to investigate police misconduct and publicly report findings.
Decline to prosecute low-level offenses for which there is no public safety benefit.
Prioritize harm-reduction strategies, including treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders.Track racial disparities in our criminal justice system and provide training throughout the DAs office to eliminate them.
Reduce the number of guns on the streets by cracking down on gun trafficking and using outreach programs to engage communities and deter violence.
Create an independent, transparent Conviction Integrity Unit dedicated to reviewing and overturning convictions of innocent people who’ve been wrongfully accused.
Read Bragg’s office biography here. See the campaign finance database here.
Soros Wrote That He Supports ‘Reform Prosecutors’
GettyHungarian-born US investor and philanthropist George Soros delivers a speech on the sideline of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, on January 24, 2019 in Davos, eastern Switzerland. – Billionaire investor George Soros said, on January 24, 2019 that Chinese President Xi Jinping was “the most dangerous enemy” of free societies for presiding over a high-tech surveillance regime.
Soros wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal about his efforts relating to funding prosecutors, titled, “Why I Support Reform Prosecutors.”
“Americans desperately need a more thoughtful discussion about our response to crime. People have had enough of the demagoguery and divisive partisan attacks that dominate the debate and obscure the issues,” Soros wrote.
“Some politicians and pundits have tried to blame recent spikes in crime on the policies of reform-minded prosecutors,” Soros wrote. “The research I’ve seen says otherwise. The most rigorous academic study, analyzing data across 35 jurisdictions, shows no connection between the election of reform-minded prosecutors and local crime rates.”
According to Fox News, Soros “attempted to make the case that policies implemented by prosecutors he has donated millions of dollars to, including New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg” have been “popular” and “effective.”
An article in City Journal contradicted Soros’s claims, writing, in part, “In addition to the data on the degree to which serious violence is committed by repeat offenders, this claim is also undercut by the fact that that those released from state prisons and tracked by the Bureau of Justice Statistics had, on average, around ten prior arrests and five prior convictions before their most recent stints.”
The Color of Change PAC Withdrew Half of Its Money From Alvin Bragg After a ‘Disturbing Allegation,’ Reports Say
GettyAlvin Bragg is a Democrat.
However, Daily Mail reported that Color of Change pulled back $500,000 of the money it was going to use to support Bragg because of a “disturbing allegation” that is not explained in the story.
According to Daily Mail, the allegation was “made by an unnamed woman” via text message, and it “caused Color of Change, the political action committee backed by billionaire George Soros, to pull funding.”
Daily Mail reported that Color of Change “was just ramping up its efforts in May, reaching out to New York City voters, when a woman on the list made the allegation against Bragg.”
A source told Daily Mail that “it threw a wrench into the PAC that was just gearing up,” but Daily Mail was unable to reach the woman so details of what she wrote were not shared.
On its website, Color of Change explained, “We design campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward. Until justice is real.”
Its website continued, “Color Of Change helps people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by 7 million members, we move decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people, and all people. Until justice is real.”
According to PBS, Bragg is the first Black district attorney in Manhattan’s history and “easily defeated Republican Thomas Kenniff on Tuesday to join a wave of progressive, reform-minded prosecutors in several big U.S cities.” According to PBS, his platform focused on prosecution alternatives.
The New York Times reported that Bragg faced controversy over a memo that indicated his office “would cease to seek jail and prison time for all but the most serious crimes.” Two prosecutors in his office previously resigned when the Trump investigation initially did not go forward, according to The Times.
Donald Trump Slammed Alvin Bragg on Truth Social, Claiming That He Has ‘Allowed New Records to Be Set in Violent Crime’
Truth Social
Trump’s post on Truth Social said “now illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorneys office, which has allowed new records to be set in violent crime & whose leader is funded by George Soros, indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven & based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far & away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back!”
TrTruth Social
CNBC reported that the probe is into Trump’s company “recording as legal expenses a reimbursement to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 he gave porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election,” and says Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.
Truth Social
Trump also wrote:
Our nation is now Third World & dying. The American dream is dead! The radical left anarchists have stolen our presidential election, and with it, the heart of our our country. American patriots are being arrested & held in captivity like animals, while criminals & leftist thugs are allowed to roam the streets, killing & burning with no retribution. Millions are flooding through our open boarders, many from prisons & mental institutions. Crime & inflation are destroying our very way of life…
“President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most radical left Democrats are making that clear,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, to The New York Times.
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