Donald Trump indicted by grand jury

Former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are among the prominent Republicans who have attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg by invoking the name of liberal billionaire George Soros, whom they claim had “hand-picked and funded” Bragg. Soros has been subject to antisemitic conspiracy theories that depict him as a puppet-master behind various US and international events. However, the truth is that Bragg’s campaign was supported by a political action committee connected to Color of Change, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports criminal justice reform among other racial justice causes. Color of Change PAC has significant funding from Soros, who has been a vocal advocate of both criminal justice reform and progressive district attorney candidates for many years.

Soros has contributed roughly $4 million to Color of Change’s PAC between 2016 and 2022, and none of those funds were earmarked for Bragg’s campaign. George Soros and Alvin Bragg have also never met, talked on the phone, emailed, or had any other form of contact. In addition, Soros’s son and daughter-in-law made donations to Bragg’s campaign during the Democratic primary earlier this year. The myth that Bragg was “hand-picked and funded by George Soros” is thus wholly unfounded.

Color of Change President and PAC spokesperson Rashad Robinson said that claims suggesting Bragg is a puppet of Soros, because of Soros’s donations to the PAC, are not only “antisemitic” but also “anti-Black.” He said the attack is premised on the idea that “Black people are so incapable of having their own ideas about how to fight for justice” that the Black-led PAC could not have come up with its own strategies. Furthermore, Trump’s assertion that Soros spent over $1 million on Bragg’s campaign is inaccurate. The Color of Change PAC announced in May 2021, the month Soros made a $1 million donation to the PAC, that it was planning to spend over $1 million on an independent expenditure campaign in support of Bragg’s candidacy. However, the PAC paused the pro-Bragg spending after hearing an uncorroborated allegation against Bragg that it was not able to thoroughly investigate at the time because of legal restrictions on PACs communicating with candidates. It ended up spending only about half of what it had planned, and kept the rest of Soros’s donation for other uses.

While Soros has always been an easy target for those looking to delegitimize progressive causes, the facts here indicate that attacks on Bragg based on a supposed Soros connection are without any basis in reality. Soros was simply one of many donors to Color of Change, which provided support to Bragg. The false narrative of Soros as a master manipulator, propagated by politicians and conspiracy theorists alike, has little to do with the actual events, and more to do with fear-mongering and misinformation.



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