Donald Trump is demanding that the Department of Justice bring rarely used and hard-to-prove federal racketeering charges against Democratic mega-donor George Soros and his son, Alex — baselessly claiming they support “violent protests.”
The president took to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday to say that the elder Soros and “his wonderful Radical Left son” — who is now running his father’s Open Society Foundation nonprofit — should be charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a 1970 law providing for extended criminal penalties against participants in ongoing criminal organizations.
“We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to “BREATHE,” and be FREE,” Trump wrote. The president also said the 95-year-old philanthropist “and his group of psychopaths” have somehow “caused great damage to our Country!”
He then added: “That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you! Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The post marks the latest bid by the president to gin up criminal cases against his adversaries.
The Nixon-era RICO statute was famously used by federal prosecutors to charge and convict Italian mafia leaders, including the late Gambino crime family boss, John Gotti, and in recent years has been used creatively against other prominent defendants, including rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, though in Combs’ case a jury declined to convict him of the racketeering charge.
Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, has become a whipping boy for the far right given his philanthropy to liberal causes as well as big political donations. But his name has also become a dog whistle or shorthand for a sprawling, centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theory alleging a global Jewish plot to manipulate political and financial systems.
The Anti-Defamation League notes that “even if no antisemitic insinuation is intended,” the implication that a Jewish individual is a “puppet master” can have “the effect of mainstreaming antisemitic tropes.”
Those conspiracy theories often intersect with other violent and bigoted ideologies, including the QAnon movement, and Trump’s supporters routinely link the elder Soros to other conspiracy theory plots, like funding “antifa” and the racial justice protests in 2020.
Trump and his supporters often allege, without evidence, that protests, demonstrations, and other forms of expressing opposition to his administration by large groups of people are not genuine and instead are funded by Soros and his organization.
Many of his authoritarian allies in foreign governments, particularly Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban, have built their political movements on opposing Soros’ efforts to promote democracy and human rights.
In a statement, the Open Society Foundation called the president’s accusations against George and Alex Soros “outrageous and false” and said the group “[does] not support or fund violent protests.”
“Our mission is to advance human rights, justice, and democratic principles at home and around the world,” the group said. “We stand for fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, including the rights to free speech and peaceful protest that are hallmarks of any vibrant democracy”.
The president’s latest diatribe about Soros comes as the Justice Department moves ahead with investigations into numerous Democratic figures and others who’ve expressed opposition to his policies.
Last week, the FBI searched the home of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned critic, allegedly for evidence that the veteran GOP foreign policy guru had violated laws governing the handling of classified information — laws that Trump himself was charged with during his time out of office.
Trump himself also supported a “violent protest” when he fomented a riotous mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
The president was also indicted in federal court for his efforts to overturn his election loss, but those charges and the charges he faced for unlawfully retaining national defense information were dismissed after he won last year’s presidential election.
