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Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business Network: "Do you believe George Soros is behind all of this, paying these people to get you and your colleagues in elevators or wherever they can get in your face?"
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, RIowa: "I have heard so many people believe that I think it is possible that I believe it fits in its face, that it has so many uses and trillions of resources."
– Exchange on "Mornings With Maria" on Fox Business Network, Oct. 5, 2018
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Senators look bad Do not fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Basically from love! #Troublemakers "
– President Donald Trump, in a tweet, Oct. 5, 2018
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Liberal billionaire George Soros has been a boogeyman for conservatives ever since he spent $ 27 million to oppose President George W. Bush's reelection in 2004.
A Hungarian-American who supports a range of liberal groups and causes, Soros, who is Jewish, has been unwillingly cast as the protagonist of conspiracy theories broad and small circulating on the right for more than a decade.
The latest one: As Protesters fill the Capitol to Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Appointment to the Supreme Court – Trump and Grassley are playing on the side of the orchestra by the invisible hand of Soros .
Polls show Americans are divided over Kavanaugh's nomination. Christine Blasey Ford and other women. He could tilt the balance in the right-leaning direction if, as expected, he replaces the more centrist Anthony Kennedy. More than 20 million people tuned in to watch Ford and Kavanaugh testify about the sexual assault allegations.
In short, with the stakes so high and the confirmation battle drawing so much attention, it is not hard to imagine that protesters would be descending on Washington without checks from Soros. Is it paying protesters or not?
Grassley gave an interview to Fox Business Network in which the host, Maria Bartiromo, asked whether he believed Soros was paying the anti-Kavanaugh protesters confronting senators. Grassley said, "I tend to believe it" because "it fits its attack mode."
Eighty minutes later, Trump tweeted that the protesters' signs were "paid for by Soros and others."
Grassley's staff provided three articles from conservative media for support. Fox News reported Oct. 3 that the women who confronted Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Has a Capitol elevator affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., And Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Reagan National Airport, Fox News added.
"Seemingly organic, powerful protests," Fox News reported. "But in both instances, the women involved came from a nonprofit called Center for Popular Democracy, George Soros, billionaire billionaires."
A Sept. 30 article in the National Review noted that the two women who confronted Flake – a video of their encounter went viral – were Ana Maria Archila, the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, and Maggie Gallagher, 23- year-old activist with the group.
"Perhaps because of their political activism," the National Review reported. "The Center is a left-wing group that is heavily funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundations, as, 2014, the Open Society was one of the three largest donors to the group."
A Sept. 19 article in the Daily Caller noted that the Center for Popular Democracy and Two Other Groups, the Women's March and Housing Works, organized a conference call detailing plans to provide protesters with $ 50 in case they were arrested at the Capitol. These payments, known as "post-and-forfeit," are basically a form of lease.
"Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh 's confirmation hearings, the activists revealed Monday night," the Daily Caller reported.
PolitiFact last year gave a "Pants on Fire" rating to the claim that Soros was paying for Women's March protesters. We found no record of any grants or donations from Soros or his Open Society Foundations to Housing Works.
Andrew Friedman, the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said the Open Society Foundations are contributing more than $ 1 million a year. That is a nonprofit, and to the Center for Popular Democracy Action, a 501 (c) (4) political advocacy group.
The center received $ 12.5 million in gifts, grants and contributions in fiscal 2016, and $ 13.2 million in fiscal 2015, according to its annual IRS filings. The 501 (c) (4) received nearly $ 3 million in grants, grants and contributions in fiscal 2016, and $ 2.3 million in fiscal 2015.
Most of the Open Society Foundations money comes with strings attached, Friedman said. The Open Society Foundations provides grants for economic justice programs, and that money was not for "post-and-forfeit" payments for the Kavanaugh protests, he said. The Soros also provides for a large amount of funding for general operating expenses, but it is used for "post-and-forfeit" payments, either, Friedman said.
"It's a totally fallacious accusation," Friedman said.
Jennifer Flynn Walker, director of advocacy and mobilization for both the center and its 501 (c) (4) arm, said protesters are not being paid. Kavanaugh, she added.
"A payment means someone at the end of the day," she said. "We help you with this post-and-forfeit." You get it for the hour or so at the Capitol, and then if you get arrested, you give it to the Capitol Police. 't get arrested, you give it back to us. "
Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for the Open Society Foundations, said the organization "has long supported the work of the Center for Popular Democracy."
"The decision to discuss the Kavanaugh appointment with Sen. Flake was obviously a deeply personal one, and Ms. Ana Maria Archila explained her thinking and motives for doing so, the decision was entirely independent of OSF's support," Silber added. "That said, the foundations of the success of our constituents," said Fox News.
The latest two grants to the Center for Popular Democracy came this year, Silber said. One, for $ 100,000, was designed to recruit and train activists on pushing "progressive policies on health care," she said. The other grant, for $ 1.2 million, was designated for rebuilding in the aftermath of Maria Hurricane in Puerto Rico.
The White House did not respond to our request for comment.
First the Daily Caller, then the National Review, then Fox News, then Maria Bartiromo, then Grassley, then the president of the United States – each cried "Soros" to play the contempt on Capitol Hill over Kavanaugh's nomination.
But the evidence that the Open Society Foundations is somehow paying these protesters does not add up. The post-and-forfeit payments are not coming from Soros money, according to an on-the-record interview with the Center for Popular Democracy's co-executive director. The Soros group said $ 1.3 million this year for other, specific programs.
The Center for Popular Democracy does not get more of its money from the Open Society Foundations anyway. It received $ 1 million to $ 1.5 million a year out of $ 15.5 million in grants, gifts and contributions.
The balance tips to "Soros conspiracy theory" rather than "Soros facts" in this case. There are some, indirect money from Soros associated with the groups that confronted senators in elevators, but it was wrong to claim the protesters were paid by Soros or directed by him. Grassley and Trump each earn Three Pinocchios.
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