Soros Is 2020’s Top Donor. Here’s Where His Money Is Going

Submitted  by: J Cryots

Soros Is 2020’s Top Donor. Here’s Where His Money Is Going***

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/36543-with-50-million-spent-soros-is-2020-s-top-donor-here-s-where-his-money-is-going

New American

July 29, 2020

With $50 Million Spent, Soros Is 2020’s Top Donor. Here’s Where His Money Is Going.

by Luis Miguel

Records show that left-wing billionaire George Soros is the largest donor of the 2020 election, with $50 million spent so far on Democrat candidates such as Joe Biden and progressive causes such as Planned Parenthood — most of it spent indirectly through PACs.

This election season, Soros has largely worked through his new Democracy PAC, created last year. The PAC’s spending last quarter alone was $17 million, bringing its total cash disbursements for this cycle to $48 million. Soros directly gave $4 million to Democrat campaigns and committees, making his combined direct and indirect donations $52 million. That’s more than double Soros’ previous record of $22 million during the 2016 election.

Democrats often speak out against the influence of big money in politics. Democratic nominee Joe Biden, for example, says on his website that he will “reduce the corrupting influence of money in politics.”

“We could improve our politics overnight if we flushed big money from the system and had public financing of our elections…. Democracy works best when a big bank account or a large donor list are not prerequisites for office,” the former vice president’s campaign site reads.

Yet Biden has had no issue accepting cash from billionaires such as Soros. The Hungarian-born investor personally donated $500,000 to his campaign, and wealthy donors in total have contributed $83 million to the Biden Victory Fund.

“While Democrats across the country sanctimoniously rail against the influence of dark money in politics, their party’s largest donors are bankrolling a massive web of liberal organizations to get them elected,” one GOP operative told the Washington Free Beacon. “George Soros’s unprecedented spending further highlights just how dependent Democrats are on contributions from billionaires, despite their hypocritical rhetoric.”

Indeed, one of the benefits of Soros’ use of Democracy PAC is that he gets to keep his name off the donors’ lists. He has transferred tens of millions this election season from his $750-million-dollar Fund for Policy Reform (part of his Open Society Foundations network) to Democracy PAC and from there to various candidates, PACs, and nonprofits.

The Free Beacon notes:

Democracy PAC has provided financial backing to dozens of liberal PACs and state-level politicians. This past quarter, its donations ranged from $90,000 to $2 million. Some of the largest donations went to the Nancy Pelosi-linked House Majority PAC ($2 million), Chuck Schumer-tied Senate Majority PAC ($1.5 million), Planned Parenthood Votes ($625,000), and the dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund ($1 million).

Soros’s $4 million in direct donations includes hundreds of thousands each to the DNC-led Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, and the Biden Victory Fund.

In addition, Soros has increased his lobbying spending. His D.C.-based lobbying arm, the Open Society Policy Center, totaled expenditures of $48 million in 2019, a personal record. This was more than was spent by the lobbying shops of large corporations such as Amazon, Facebook, Boeing, or Google.

Another cause supported by George Soros this cycle? Mail-in voting.

One of the top organizations behind the movement for mail-in voting is the Brennan Center of Justice, based out of NYU School of Law. The Center received considerable financing from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and has been the beneficiary of several Open Society grants, receiving over $7,466,000 from 2000 to 2019 alone.

In fact, leaked documents from the Open Society Foundations listed the Brennan Center as the recipient of funds earmarked for the express purpose of “litigation to expand access to registration and improve ease of voting.”

While Democrats are heavily pressing for mail-in voting this election with the ostensible aim of protecting Americans’ health during the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump and Republicans argue that mail-in voting is too susceptible to fraud, which could have enormous consequences for the integrity of the election.

Despite the fact that Soros, with a net worth of $8.6 billion, has some deep pockets from which to donate to all of these leftist causes, his groups received up to $20 million this year from the Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to help small businesses struggling due to government COVID-19 restrictions.

The Soros-linked groups that received these funds belong to the Democracy Alliance, whose other donors include Soros’ son, Jonathan, billionaires Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman, and real estate investor Patricia Bauman.