Deception & Misdirection
Soros-Funded District Attorneys Linked to Increases in Violent Crime
George Soros has spent millions on giving to left-wing progressive candidates for district attorney positions across the country in an effort to advance his radical criminal reform agenda. The massive donations have given these progressive candidates significant advantages in their local races, and many of them have been elected.
These left-wing progressive district attorneys’ policies have significantly reduced prosecution rates, leading to predictable increases in violent crimes and a lack of justice for the victims.
The similarities between the goals of these left-wing prosecutors and racial justice groups funded by Soros provide a grim outlook for how these polarizing, popular groups will affect our political institutions.
Progressive Criminal Justice Reform
The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) analyzed the outcome of dropping conviction rates under six different progressive district attorneys. These district attorneys are cited as “criminal justice reform” prosecutors who seek to use their elected positions to unilaterally end mass incarceration and racial disparities in convictions and reduce recidivism rates.
The report found that in each of the six prosecutors’ jurisdictions, felony crime rates have increased while their prosecutors’ policies are reducing conviction rates. The net results are a lack of justice for victims and rising crime rates. The report concludes, “This signals a troubling trend as these progressive activists attain local prosecutorial roles and may mark a rise in crime in the affected jurisdictions and nearby locales.”
One thing these prosecutors have in common is funding from George Soros. Soros has spent millions of dollars in these smaller elections to give “reform” prosecutors a significant advantage, often leading to victory.
According to LELDF, in recent years Soros has spent:
- $417,000 to help reelect Kim Foxx in March 2020 as state’s attorney in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois. After assuming office, she has facilitated a 27 percent decrease in guilty verdicts and a 54 percent increase in dropped or dismissed cased.
- $1.45 million for Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner’s victory in May 2017. Philadelphia has since seen an 18 percent increase in aggravated assault by guns in his first year, while his office has achieved a 22 percent increase in dropped aggravated-assault-by-gun cases. He has previously said that incarceration has not worked in preventing repeat offenders, and as a result his office has decreased convictions for violent crimes.
- $236,000 to John Creuzot in Dallas, who sought to “end mass incarceration” in 2018. He has overseen a 15 percent increase in violent crime and 27.5 percent increase in homicide, while dropping 20 percent more felony cases.
- $958,000 to Joe Gonzalez in 2018 in Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas. (His incumbent counterpart Nicholas Lahood raised only $290,000, despite being a “prolific fundraiser.”) Under Gonzalez, felony guilty verdicts have decreased 13 percent, and dropped felony cases have increased 11 percent.
Soros continued to spend millions on these smaller DA races into the 2020 election, continuing his trend of giving them an advantage.
Soros’s Spending on “Racial Equity”
Funding progressive prosecutors is consistent with Soros’s explicit commitment to “racial equality,” as he defines it. In July 2020, it was announced he would be committing $220 million to “Black-led racial justice groups” over the next few years. This is in addition to his already significant funding of the Black Lives Matter movement.
If the experiences of these counties reveal anything, it is that Soros’s influence over racial justice groups is harming the very people he is claiming to help. Many of these counties experiencing spikes in crime under Soros-backed prosecutors have large black and minority populations, and increasing violent crime would seem to be the opposite of achieving racial justice.
The idea of “defunding the police” has been one of the most popular and controversial “solutions” to the police killings of black people in 2020. It is closely associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and aligns with how his left-wing progressive prosecutors are seeking to establish racial justice. The LELDF report indicates that the Soros-funded prosecutors are instead creating major disasters, not advancing racial justice.