Left-wing billionaire George Soros has funded a dark money hub used by progressive activists to defund police to the tune of millions of dollars, according to an analysis of grants.
Soros’ nonprofit network, the Foundation to Promote an Open Society, plowed $3 million into the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability last year, according to a search of the organization’s grant database.
The CRH serves as a central point of distribution for local left-wing activists on how so-called police reform initiatives, to including materials showing how to defund or abolition police departments.
“The hub sits under the umbrella of the most prominent dark money network in the U.S.,” Fox News reported, citing tax forms.
Of the Soros-provided funding, $2 million funded a “budgeting Academy program” set up to “train community safety advocates in how to advocate around their local municipal budgets,” according to the grants. The remaining $1 million went for general support efforts.
Previously, the Open Society Foundation gave $1.5 million to the resource center in 2019, $500,000 of which when to establish the hub, according to tax forms.
The dark money donations are part of a larger effort on the part of Soros to reshape the U.S. justice system. For several years, he has funded far-left district attorney candidates, many successfully, in some of the country’s largest cities. Critics cite the DAs — including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles, and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia — for implementing soft-on-crime policies that have contributed to crime spikes in their cities.
The hub describes itself “as a resource for local advocates and organizers working to address the harms of policing in the U.S.” and seeks to “cultivate community safety and accountability outside of the criminal legal system.”
CRH contains resources such as reports, data, research, and model policies to support efforts to defund police departments. Among these materials is a 24-page memo that “reviews alternatives to policing in the context of police abolitionist frameworks, offering insights and sharing successful strategies for advocates in the field.”
In addition, CRH provides a Defund Police Fellowship program that supports 16 fellows in 13 cities with money to pay for staff. The hub also “offers monthly trainings and skill building sessions, weekly office hours with budget, campaign strategy, and communications experts, and a peer mentor program,” according to the website.
Local law enforcement and prosecutors blame the lefty policies of DAs for spikes in crime, but some of them have pushed back including Krasner in Philly.
“We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence,” the district attorney told reporters at a Monday press conference. “It’s important that we don’t let this become mushy and bleed into the notion that there is some kind of big spike in crime. There isn’t. There is not a big spike in crime. … There is not a big spike in violent crime. Neither one of these things is true.”
In fact, Fox News reported separately:
The Philadelphia Police Department has reported 521 homicides so far in 2021 – a 13% increase compared to 2020 and the city’s highest number of killings since at least 2007. Shooting incidents have increased 4.4%, and the number of shooting victims has risen about 3% over the last year.
Jon has over 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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