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Weaponizing the Government

DOJ Targeted Soros Based on Smear that Right-Wing Group Admits Showed No Lawbreaking

George Soros at the World Economic Forum 2011
Copyright by World Economic Forum
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A Justice Department official recently urged federal prosecutors to target philanthropist George Soros and consider a range of criminal charges against the Open Society Foundations, citing a report from the right-wing Capital Research Center that smeared Soros and OSF for allegedly pouring money into groups “tied to terrorism or extremist violence.” Today, the president of the Capital Research Center admitted in the New York Times that his group had not found any evidence that the Soros network had committed a crime.

People For the American Way President Svante Myrick released the following statement:

“The Soros family and the Open Society Foundations have been targeted by bad-faith right-wing smears for years. What’s different now is that we have a president abusing his power to target his political opponents using irresponsible charges of terrorism.  And we have a Justice Department willing to follow his corrupt orders to go after ‘the enemy within.’ The Trump regime’s targeting of civil society is a dangerous escalation of its authoritarian attacks on free speech and other political freedoms.

“The truth is dangerous to dictators. That’s why authoritarians like Trump try to suppress truth and those who report it.”

 

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People For the American Way is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. For more than four decades, we have been dedicated to making the promise of America real for everyone and have worked toward a vision of a vibrant America where basic rights and freedoms are upheld for all, not just the wealthy and the powerful. Learn more: http://www.peoplefor.org