Lawyer Adam Waldman said during an appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Nov. 3 that he relayed information about possible links between billionaire activist George Soros and Fusion GPS.
Waldman said he received the information in a March 16.
Waldman said Daniel J. Jones asserted he was working with Fusion GPS and that the research firm was being funded by a “group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros.”
An American lawyer who served as a back channel between dossier author Christopher Steele and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is opening up about explosive testimony he gave to a Senate committee late last year.
Adam Waldman said that during an appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on Nov. 3, he relayed information about possible links between billionaire activist George Soros and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier.
Waldman said he received the information in a March 16 meeting he had with Daniel J. Jones, a consultant and former staffer to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Waldman told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Jones asserted that he was working with Fusion GPS and that the research firm was being funded by a “group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros.” Jones also described Fusion as a “shadow media organization helping the government.”
“He was there as Fusion GPS. He brought up Fusion GPS,” Waldman told TheDCNF of his interaction with Jones.
“It was very, very clear.”
Waldman, 49, also said that Jones mentioned Glenn Simpson, one of Fusion’s co-founders and Steele’s main partner on the dossier project.
Waldman’s testimony about the meeting was first revealed in a Daily Caller op-ed published last week by Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who is a client of Waldman’s.
In the op-ed, Deripaska, a former business partner of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s, largely criticized the so-called “Deep State,” which he alleges has pushed a false narrative about the Russia investigation. But the piece also broke news about his lawyer’s Senate testimony and the claims about Fusion GPS and Soros funding.
Jones, Fusion GPS, and a representative for Soros did not return repeated requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Senate panel declined to discuss Waldman’s testimony.
Reached by phone, Fusion GPS attorney Josh Levy declined to comment on Waldman’s testimony about Jones and Soros connections to the firm, saying “I’m not commenting for your story.”
Waldman’s link to key players in the Russia investigation is one of the more intriguing wrinkles in the dossier saga. On one side is Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. On the other are Steele, Jones and Warner, all of who are involved in one way or another in investigating the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016
election.
How the two sides found a common link in Waldman remains a mystery, one that lawyer said he is presently unable to discuss in full.
Waldman, who runs Endeavor Law Firm and also represents actor Johnny Depp, entered the national spotlight last month after text messages that he exchanged last year with Warner were leaked to Fox News. The messages, which Waldman provided to SSCI in September, showed that he negotiated with Warner on behalf of the London-based Steele to set up an interview with the committee.
Warner sought the meeting in his capacity as the top Democrat on Senate Intel.
Steele, as is now widely known, was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016 to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid Fusion for the project.
Waldman’s texts to Warner mention Steele, Deripaska, and Jones, who was an SSCI staffer for Feinstein when she chaired the panel.
Encrypted text messages provided to SSCI and obtained by TheDCNF corroborate some of Waldman’s claims, particularly regarding his meeting with Jones and a suggestion from him that he helped with anti-Trump news stories.
A March 15 message shows Jones contacted Waldman and introduced himself as being with an upstart non-profit group called the Democracy Integrity Project.
Signal messages from Daniel Jones to Adam Waldman
“Dan Jones here from the Democracy Integrity Project. Chris wanted us to connect,” reads the intro message, referring to Steele and to a newly formed non-profit group of which little is known.
Corporate registration documents show that a group by that name was formed in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 31, 2017, several weeks before Jones’ outreach to Waldman and several weeks after BuzzFeed News published the dossier.
Waldman’s contact with Warner began in February 2017 and initially centered on Deripaska and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Waldman suggested in his initial texts that he was in communication with Assange, who is living under asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The lawyer first mentioned Steele to Warner on March 17, a day after he met with Jones, who now runs a consulting firm called the Penn Quarter Group.
“Chris Steele asked me to call you,” Waldman wrote to Warner.
The text messages show that Warner, a Democrat, sought to meet with Steele separately from other members of the Senate committee. But Waldman said that Steele first wanted a letter signed by Warner and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the committee, formally seeking an interview with Steele.
Warner rebuffed the idea and pressed for a private meeting with Steele, going as far as offering to travel to England.
“We want to do this right private in London don’t want to send letter yet cuz if we can’t get agreement wud rather not have paper trail,” Warner wrote on March 30.
Waldman’s texts to Warner also refer to Jones.
“[Steele] said he will also speak w Dan Jones whom he says is talking to you,” Waldman wrote in an April 25 message. “I encouraged him to engage with you for the sake of the truth and of vindication of the dossier,” the text continued.
Later that day, he wrote that “[Steele] said Dan Jones is coming to see you.”
“I suggest you explain to Dan why a call is the necessary first step rather than a letter from your perspective.”
Waldman had only a few text exchanges with Jones, but the messages provide some insight into Jones’ investigative work on Trump.
“Our team helped with this,” Jones wrote in a March 17 message that included a link to a Reuters article about Russian nationals’ investments in Trump-owned buildings. The article focuses heavily on Russians’ investments in Trump real estate properties in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.
Jones did not describe who was included on his team, but Glenn Simpson, the Fusion GPS co-founder, testified to two congressional committees last year that his firm conducted research into Trump’s real estate deals in Sunny Isles Beach.
“I spoke w Warner and he did mention you as discussed. He obliquely brought your org up so it was natural,” Waldman wrote on March 19.
Waldman and Warner’s leaked texts show that the two called each other multiple times around that date.
The two sets of text messages, and Waldman’s testimony, raises numerous questions about the dossier.
It remains unclear why Jones reached out to Waldman. Jones and Waldman’s relationships to Steele are also a mystery. Waldman declined to comment on that particular matter, and a request for comment from Steele’s lawyers in London was forwarded to a legal adviser who said they could not speak to the media on Steele’s behalf.
Little else is known about Jones’ work with Fusion GPS or on the dossier. The only reporting on those connections comes from The Federalist which recently reported that Jones was working with Fusion as part of a post-election effort to validate the dossier.
Republican lawmakers remain puzzled by the Warner-Waldman and the possible links between Deripaska and Steele.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently sent letters to Waldman and Deripaska’s London-based attorney, Paul Hauser, inquiring whether they or Deripaska have ever hired Steele or his private intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
Grassley also sent letters in January to members of the Clinton campaign and DNC asking about any communications with more than 20 individuals, including Fusion GPS employees, Waldman and Jones.
Grassley appears interested in exploring what implications any links between Steele and Deripaska would have for the dossier, which BuzzFeed News published on Jan. 10, 2017. Waldman denies one lead that lawmakers appear to be chasing: that Deripaska was a source for the dossier.
Waldman has represented Deripaska since 2009, largely on visa issues. The oligarch has fought the State Department over its decision in 2006 to revoke his visa after the agency became concerned about the industrialist’s alleged ties to Russian organized crime.
The aluminum magnate pays Waldman $40,000 a month for the work, according to documents filed by under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Deripaska has also worked in the past with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was recently indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on money laundering and bank fraud charges.
While Manafort was on the campaign, he and Deripaska were in a dispute over a failed business venture involving cable TV stations in Ukraine. Deripaska accused the Republican consultant of squandering $19 million from the deal.
“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote to an associate on July 7, 2016, while he was still with the Trump campaign.
And just before joining the campaign in April 2016, Manafort sent a cryptic message to his associate: “How do we use to get whole?”
The emails have fueled speculation that Manafort sought to use his position on the campaign to help settle his debts to Deripaska.
Yes I Believe In Global Warning You Damn Idiots. The Fuhrer Was A Tree Hugger.
The Great Global Warming Scam Began with the Nazis…
If you really want to understand the great global warming scam you must listen to my podcast this week with Rupert Darwall.
In his new book Green Tyranny, Darwall tells a story so extraordinary and implausible that it’s no wonder most of the mainstream media has been too scared to touch it.
The bottom line: it all started with the Nazis.
Yes, I know. It sounds so click-baity, doesn’t it?
That’ll be why even those journals and writers that have reviewed the book favorably have tended to steer clear of the key chapter in Darwall’s book. The one mischievously titled ‘Europe’s First Greens’.
Europe’s First Greens were, of course, the Nazis.
The documentary evidence provided by Darwall is irrefutable, for this is a considered, well-researched and scholarly work not a potboiler.
What Darwall demonstrates is that the ideology driving the current climate scare originated in Hitler’s Germany.
Angela Merkel’s Energiewende, the brainwashing of your kids in school with green propaganda,the Climate Industrial Complex, the black outs in South Australia, Solyndra, Obama promising that electricity prices would “necessarily skyrocket”, the bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes destroying a skyline near you, the real reason Trump just had to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord – it’s all basically the fault of the Nazis.
Americans Are So Damn Stupid. I know Climate Change Is A Joke But I Still Gave Them Solyndra $535 m. I’m A Pimp Damit
That’s because Nazis – though similar in so many ways to their fellow totalitarians the Communists – had at least one major point of difference with Marxist ideology: they feared and loathed industrial progress and they worshipped nature.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:
When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man.
The Fuhrer, in other words, was as big a Gaia worshipper as even Naomi Klein or Emma Thompson or Leonardo di Caprio.
As Hitler thought, so did the Nazi intelligentsia. Many of them were vegetarians and, like Rudolf Hess and Agriculture Minister Walter Darre were big fans of organic farming. The party was fiercely anti-smoking (even though the Germans continued to smoke fanatically so long as tobacco was available). They were also massively into “renewable” energy, especially wind, tidal power and hydroelectric.
Hitler said in a dinner party conversation in 1941:
“We shall have to use every method of encouraging whatever might ensure us the gain of a single kilowatt…Coal will disappear one day.”
He then speculated on renewable solutions to this ‘peak coal’ problem:
“The future belongs, surely, to water – to the wind and the tides.”
(This isn’t mentioned in the book but Hitler’s favorite SS commando – Otto Skorzeny – who miraculously survived the war and retired to live in Spain spent his later years campaigning on behalf of the wind industry.)
Darwall doesn’t mince his words:
The Nazis’ profound hostility to capitalism and their identification with nature-politics led them to advocate green policies half a century before any other political party. As an approximation, subtract Nazi race-hate, militarism and desire for world conquest, and Nazi ideology ends up looking not dissimilar to today’s environmental movement.
What Darwall goes on to demonstrate is how this mindset, unabated by the defeat of Nazi Germany, continued to dominate European political thought. This was especially so in the two countries most responsible for promulgating the climate change scare: Sweden and Germany.
In Germany, the Nazis’ green ideology became linked inextricably with that of the Peace movement – which, with a certain irony, was largely sponsored by the Soviet Union.
Sweden, meanwhile, did most to get the global warming scare up and running in the early days. Bert Bolin, the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a Swede.
You’ll have to read Darwall’s book for the full, rather complicated story. By the end you’ll have an answer to perhaps the most puzzling of the many questions about the global warming industry: why, given the scientific evidence is so flimsy, does it carry on pushing its cause so fervently?
The answer is simple: because “global warming” is not about “the science” and never was about “the science.”
Like the “acid rain” scare and the “nuclear winter” scare, the man-made global warming scare is a fake news story designed to push a political and economic agenda.
At the bottom of that agenda is the same superstitious fear the Nazis had: that industrial progress is morally wrong because it is against Nature.
Hence the greenies’ obsession with renewables. Despite all the evidence that renewables do at least as much environmental damage as fossil fuels, only much more expensively, and without making any meaningful difference to “climate change” the green ideology persists in pretending that renewables are the “clean” “natural” alternative to “dirty” fossil fuels.
It’s about emotion not logic; about the narrative, not reality.
For decades we’ve been gulled by a compliant (and invariably ignorant) media into believing that the global warming scare is about scientists doing clever sciencey stuff and reaching important conclusions which the world can only ignore at its peril.
But actually, all along, the tail has been wagging the dog.
The scientists are a virtual irrelevance in this story: merely the useful idiots of a political agenda.
That agenda is part religion – a kind of pagan nature worship expressed through opposition to Western industrial civiliation and the embrace of retrograde technologies like wind power.
And it’s part leftist politics and economics: a way by which Europe can destroy and overtake the United States’ economic hegemony by neutralising one of its greatest competitive advantages – the abundance of fossil fuels which have now made it the world’s number one energy superpower.
Donald Trump probably hasn’t a clue about the intellectual and ideological undercurrents which created the great global warming scare. But he’s a businessman and saw what was happening through gut instinct.
Global warming is a scam – the biggest the world has ever seen.
Employees of a hedge fund founded by the king of the Institutional Left, billionaire and Democratic Party mega-donor George Soros, donated tens of thousands of dollars to top Republicans who fought against President Donald Trump in 2016, donation records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show.
That’s right, wear your pussy hat you sellout bastards
Soros Fund Management, a former hedge fund that serves now as an investment management firm, was founded by progressive billionaire George Soros in 1969. It has risen to become one of the most profitable hedge funds in the industry. Employees of the firm are heavily involved in backing political candidates giving millions upon millions to groups that were supporting failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton for the presidency.
But more importantly, perhaps, than the unsurprising giant lump sums of cash funneled into Democratic Party and Clinton coffers is the revelation thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics that employees of the Soros firm—now run by his son Robert Soros—pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the campaigns of top anti-Trump Republicans over the course of 2016.
In total, executives with the Soros-founded company pushed $36,800 into the coffers of these GOP candidates just this past cycle. That does not include Super PACs or campaign committees, which saw tens of thousands of dollars more. While these numbers for Republicans pale in comparison to the millions upon millions poured into Democratic groups, causes, and candidates, it is significant that Soros executives are making a play inside the GOP. Perhaps even more significant is the type of Republican they aim to prop up: pro-amnesty, pro-open borders on trade, and generally speaking anti-Trump. A pattern emerges when looking at the policies of the Republicans that these Soros Fund Management executives support financially.
The biggest recipient of Soros-connected cash in the GOP was none other than House Speaker Paul Ryan, who repeatedly attempted to undermine Trump over the course of the election. According to the records available online, the Soros firm’s workers gave $10,800 to Ryan. Included in that are two separate May 2, 2016, donations from David Rogers, a then-employee of Soros Fund Management who lives in New York City. Rogers left the Soros Fund Management firm right around that time.
Bloomberg reported in late April 2016, just before these two separate donations to Ryan;
David Rogers and Joshua Donfeld, two portfolio managers at billionaire George Soros’s family office, are leaving the firm over disagreements with its new chief investment officer about the direction of global markets, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Rogers, a protege of Soros’s former chief investment strategist Stan Druckenmiller, managed a portfolio of about $3 billion at the $28 billion Soros Fund Management, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Rogers, 38, made his name as a commodities trader, while Donfeld, 40, focuses on stock investing, said the people, adding that both men are expected to leave the family office next month.
Another two separate donations to Ryan came from Donfeld, both on May 2, 2016 and totaling $2,700 each. In total, that adds up to $10,800—between both Rogers and Donfeld, who were working for Soros Fund Management at the time—that they gave to Paul Ryan.
Ryan’s chief spokesman, Brendan Buck, has not responded to a Breitbart News’s inquiry about the donations from the Soros firm’s employees. But Ryan’s support for open borders when it comes to immigration and trade, and his backing of so-called “criminal justice reform” legislation, is in line with Soros’ worldview—and he regularly bashed Trump over the course of the 2016 election.
But he was hardly the only anti-Trump Republican who received cash from Soros Fund Management employees over the course of 2016. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a failed presidential candidate, received $3,500 from the firm’s employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics data. That includes a $1,500 donation from Soros Fund Management executive Scott Bessent. Bessent has since left the firm to work at a different hedge fund, but “oversaw George Soros’s $30 billion fortune for the last four years” according to an early January 2016 article in Bloomberg. The other two donations to Graham from the firm’s employees—both worth $1,000, with one on March 17, 2015, and the other on July 29, 2015—came from Alexander Cohen, an executive with Soros Fund Management.
Fellow failed presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) raked in $2,700, while other failed GOP presidential candidates Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also received $2,700 apiece from employees of the Soros firm.
Rubio’s $2,700 donation came from the aforementioned Los Angeles-based Donfeld on Jan. 22, 2016, a few months before, as Bloomberg reported, he and Rogers left the firm. Kasich’s $2,700 donation came from Bessent on Oct. 24, 2015. Bush’s $2,700 donation came on July 24, 2015, from David Murphy of Soros Fund Management. Murphy, according to his LinkedIN page, is a current “portfolio manager” at the firm.
Kasich’s spokesman Chris Schrimpf did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Bush’s spokeswoman Kristy Campbell.
A spokesman for Rubio, Matt Wolking, vociferously defended the senator, calling this story in Breitbart News—without having read it because it wasn’t written until long after he responded to inquiries about this matter—a “fake” story since Rubio didn’t get donations directly from George Soros himself and since hedge funds as companies cannot make donations to federal candidates. Breitbart News never alleged that Rubio did get donations directly from George Soros himself, but was inquiring with Rubio’s staff if the senator had a comment on why he did take donations from an executive at George Soros’s hedge fund. That fact, that Rubio did take cash from a Soros Fund Management executive—and that that fund was founded by George Soros—is not something Wolking, on Rubio’s behalf, challenges. So what his team is doing is creating a straw man argument to falsely claim this story is “fake.”
“This story is a fake,” Wolking told Breitbart News. “Senator Rubio has never received any contribution from George Soros. And he has never received any contribution from the Soros company because, among other things, companies can’t donate to federal candidates.”
But more importantly, a Rubio spokesman did admit that the FEC filing is correct—that Rubio took a $2,700 donation from Donfeld. The Rubio spokesman argues that Donfeld donated “almost exclusively” to GOP candidates over the years—which is mostly true, as Donfeld has given to people like Ryan, Rubio, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), and 2012 GOP Ohio Senate nominee Josh Mandel, among others. But Donfeld, whom the Rubio spokesman points out and as Breitbart News mentioned earlier in this piece, left the Soros firm after making this donation to Rubio, has donated to Democrats like Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), and a failed Democratic congressional candidate in Arizona’s 9th congressional district in 2012, Andrei Cherny.
Anti-Trump Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a failed one-time GOP presidential nominee from 2008, got $2,500 from an executive at the Soros firm, while Boehner—who resigned amid a coup from conservatives—raked in $2,600 from an executive at the Soros firm.
McCain’s $2,500 this cycle came from Donfeld of Soros Fund Management on Sept. 23, 2015. In previous cycles, McCain has taken cash directly from George Soros himself—a $1,000 donation on June 2, 1999—and from others with the firm, including a $1,000 donation from Bessent on March 13, 2000, a $2,300 donation from Soros Fund Management’s Michael Au on Dec. 27, 2007, a $1,000 donation from Duncan Hennes of Soros Fund Management on March 13, 2000, and a $2,300 donation from Soros Fund Management’s Joshua Berkowitz on Jan. 15, 2008. McCain’s spokeswoman, Julie Tarallo, has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Breitbart News.
Boehner’s $2,600 donation this cycle came from Bessent of Soros Fund Management on Feb. 12, 2015. The media relations department at Reynolds American, the tobacco company of which Boehner joined the board after resigning from Congress in 2015, has not responded to a request for comment on his behalf.
Now former Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV), the 2016 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada who lost his election after he withdrew his endorsement of Trump in the general election, also received $2,500 from an executive at Soros Fund Management, while Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL)—a “Never Trump” congressman who voted for a third-party candidate because he refused to support the GOP nominee for president—received $1,000 from an executive at the Soros family firm.
Heck’s $2,500 donation on Sept. 29, 2016, came from Soros Fund Management’s Sender Cohen. According to the Israel on Campus Coalition, another organization for which Sender Cohen serves as director, he is a “Portfolio Manager, the Director of Research and member of the Management Committee at Soros Fund Management.” Heck’s spokesman from the campaign has not responded to a request for comment on Monday.
Curbelo’s $1,000 donation came on June 5, 2015, from Paul Sohn, a former executive with Soros Fund Management. Sohn had already left the firm earlier in the year, as it was reported on CNBC in January 2015 that Sohn had left Soros Fund Management after his involvement in a controversial investment. That is months before he reported on this June 2015 Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing for this Curbelo donation that his employer was Soros Fund Management. A Curbelo spokeswoman has not responded to a request for comment.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the House GOP conference chairwoman, got $1,000 from an official with Soros Fund Management. She is responsible for unleashing the independent and wildly unsuccessful general election candidate Evan McMullin—whom Trump has called “McMuffin” in jest after his failure—upon the world. McMullin, who turned out to fail fantastically on election day despite media fanfare about his candidacy, was previously a McMorris Rodgers staffer as chief policy director for nearly two years in the House GOP conference before his whimsical bid at the presidency that went nowhere and had essentially zero impact on the race. Rodgers’ $1,000 donation this cycle came from Alexander Cohen of Soros Fund Management on March 13, 2015. A spokesman for McMorris Rodgers has not responded to a request for comment on this matter.
The only few Republicans who received Soros Fund Management cash but did support Trump were Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY), and Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA). Royce received $2,500 from the firm, Johnson and Grassley each received $1,000, and Donovan received $300. Johnson’s $1,000 donation came on April 15, 2016, from Alexander Cohen of Soros Fund Management, as did Grassley’s, which came on Oct. 13, 2015. Donovan’s $300 donation came from Christopher Rich of Soros Fund Management on April 20, 2015. Royce’s $2,500 donation came from Sender Cohen of Soros Fund Management on March 31, 2016. Spokespersons for Johnson, Grassley, Donovan and Royce have not responded to Breitbart News’s requests for comment.
Refuse Fascism’ Group Behind Berkeley Riot Received $50k from George Soros
They need to lock his ass up and take all of his money. RICO!
One of the far-left “anti-fascist” groups behind last week’s riot in Berkeley, Refuse Fascism, received $50,000 from a group backed by socialist billionaire George Soros, according to the Daily Caller.
The Alliance for Global Justice, which is funded by the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation, reportedly donated $50,000 to fund Refuse Fascism, which openly brags about using violence to shut down conservative and libertarian speech.
“While it is unclear whether those who carried out the violence were paid to do so, the benefactors of the Alliance for Global Justice — and Refuse Fascism — are listed online,” reported the Daily Caller. “According to its most recent 990 tax form, Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) received $2.2 million in funding for the fiscal year ending in March 2016. One of the group’s biggest donors is the Tides Foundation, a non-profit funded by billionaire progressive philanthropist George Soros. Tides gave AfGJ $50,000.”
“Other notable donors include the city of Tucson and the United Steel Workers labor union. The former gave $10,000 to AfGJ while the latter contributed $5,000,” they continued. “Charities associated with several major corporations also donated. Patagonia.org, the outdoor apparel and equipment company, gave $40,000. The Ben & Jerry Foundation, the charity associated with the ice cream maker, gave $20,000. And Lush Cosmetic gave $43,950. Another bit of irony is seen in the $5,000 contribution from the Peace Development Fund, a group that claims to support organizations that fight for human rights and social justice.”
The group defended the violent riot at Berkeley on Facebook, which left numerous Trump supporters and fans of MILO injured and bloody, before deleting their post.
“Dismantling police fences is not violent,” they claimed, according to the Daily Caller, ignoring the rest of the violence that occured. “And to compare preventing someone like that from speaking to the real-world violence that they perpetuate everyday is ludicrous.”
Refuse Fascism also branded the riot as “righteous,” and encouraged more violence to shut down conservatives in a post on their website.
“Last night, thousands of students, professors and others protested the appearance and organizing rally of Milo Yiannopoulos, a major fascist operative, shutting it down. This was righteous and much more like this is needed,” the group proclaimed. “Lets be clear: Milo Yiannopoulos is not engaging in ‘free speech.’ He is consciously spearheading the Nazification of the American University.”
The riot started at UC Berkeley on Wednesday after protesters against Breitbart Senior Editor MILO became increasingly violent outside of his show.
“Anti-fascists” started several fires, smashed windows and ATMs, looted downtown stores, attacked cars, and assaulted dozens of MILO fans, male and female, who they falsely accused of being “Nazis.”
Despite the large amount of violence, numerous reports indicate that police officers refused to intervene, and only one suspect was arrested.
UFC veteran and professional MMA fighter Jake Shields was even forced to rescue a man who was being assaulted by left-wing rioters after police allegedly refused to intervene.
“Like fifteen people were trying to attack him and others were cheering them on,” explained Shields, who managed to successfully rescue the man, in an interview with Breitbart News. “No one helped, no one had the balls to step in, so my reaction was to run in and start picking people off.”
“More chaos started happening, so I went up to the police and tried bringing them back, but they were just like ‘we’re not really going over there. You should just stay away.’” he continued. “I don’t know if they were taking orders from someone or if they were just being lazy. I don’t know what the situation was, but it was pathetic to watch. Our police, who are supposed to defend the citizens of Berkeley. It’s a sad scene that they would allow that.”
The national co-coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice, Chuck Kaufman, claimed he wasn’t aware that Refuse Fascism were involved in the riots, but defended their involvement citing the fact that numerous far-left groups joined in.
“I wasn’t aware that Refuse Fascism was involved, but probably they were one of a whole lot of groups calling to shut down Milo Yiannopoulos’ hate speech,” said Kaufman to The Daily Caller. “AfGJ acts as fiscal sponsor for Refuse Fascism which means we process tax-deductible donations for them. As long as their use of the money falls into areas permitted for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations, we don’t involve ourselves one way or the other in their program work.”
Several celebrities and news outlets expressed support for the riot, including Hollywood director Judd Apatow, who deleted his tweet shortly after, and Fusion, who smeared MILO as a “Nazi,” before praising rioters.
The day after, MILO’s tour bus was tracked down by “anti-fascists” and vandalized, forcing both him and his team to evacuate the premises after his location was leaked online.
Four anti-fascists were also arrested last week after they became violent during a protest against libertarian commentator and VICE co-founder Gavin McInnes, who was speaking at New York University.
A leaked 2009 document marked “classified” from George Soros’ Open Society Institute calls the Obama presidency a “make or break” moment for “transformative change” in immigration reform, “racial justice,” and a myriad of other issues.
“We are living in a ‘make or break’ moment for building open society in America. There is no need to wax eloquent about why. The factors were not all in play even just a year ago,” Ann Beeson and Bill Vanderberg wrote in a document titled “Special Funding to Seize This Transformative Moment.”
Beeson is the former executive director of U.S. programs at the Open Society Foundations and is currently the executive director for The Center for Public Policy Priorities. Vandenburg is the program director for U.S. special initiatives and partnerships at the Open Society Foundations.
The”hacktivist” group DCLeaks released over 2000 files from Open Society Foundations and other Soros groups Saturday.
Beeson and Vandenberg wrote: “the abuses of the prior Administration began the wake up call. Obama raised the pitch by running – and winning – on a platform of transformative change. The global economic crisis then elevated the risks and opportunities for building a better society. There is now a perfect storm for real change. What is OSI’s role in this moment?”
The document states that OSI provide up to $10 million for projects. OSI now goes by the Open Society Foundations and was founded by Soros. It has a budget of $930.7 million in 2016.
“Without additional funds, many organizations and leaders will lack the capacity to take advantage of this historic moment, and the perfect storm may pass with no real change in its wake,” Beeson and Vandenberg wrote in the February 2009 memo.
The U.S programs division of OSI wanted “special funding” to four different areas. These are:
Advance the most challenging issues – including mass incarceration, immigration, drug policy, and structural inequality – as part of the transformative national agenda.
Ensure transparency, accountability and equity in the development and implementation of economic recovery plans
Increase public participation in policy reform efforts by those most impacted, including people of color, immigrant, and low-income communities
Integrate recent innovations in organizing and technology into more organizations and movements.
The memo then goes on to list organizations that should receive grants to achieve each of these goals. To push for criminal justice reform, the OSI said the Council of State Governments and the Justice Mapping Center among other groups should get support. “We could expand support for model reentry programs that provide training for former prisoners, such as a newly forming national Clean Energy Corps and the National Service Corps,” the memo states.
Beeson and Vendenberg wrote, “OSI should provide funding to strengthen the capacity of national groups focused on specific issues – racial justice, LGBT equality, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights – to develop an over-arching equality agenda.” A group they identify as being able to take a “lead role in this effort” is the National Council of La Raza.
The memo states that a successful agenda “cannot be a typical liberal issue ‘laundry list.’” “If done thoughtfully, such an effort could build a left/ right coalition utilizing ‘common good’ or ‘shared fate’ framing.”
The OSI document also calls for funding in government transparency groups and organizations that encourage government spending towards programs that benefit minorities and previously incarcerated individuals.
The effort discussed in the memo rises up out of something referred to as “Unity 2009.” “In December and January, we also began discussions about an emerging table of organizations committed to supporting a new, large scale economic recovery policy campaign – a ‘new new deal.’ This effort is now called Unity 09.”
“The structure of the [Unity 2009] effort has changed significantly since we last discussed it, largely due to concerns raised by USP’s staff and General Counsel,” the memo states. It goes on to say that Unity 09 “will not be a new organization” but instead consist of various non-profits that collaborate.
“The initial Unity 2009 convening in DC included thirty-five organizational leaders. Several OSI grantees participated, including the Center for American Progress, Center for Community Change, National Council of La Raza, National Immigration Forum, and State Voices,” Beeson and Vandenberg wrote. “Beyond these groups, however, Unity 2009 lacks inclusion of people of color, immigrant, student, and faith community organizations.”
The memo points to John Podesta and Andy Stern as leaders in the Unity 2009 effort. It states that both “are well-connected with the new Administration and on the Hill.”
Stern is the former president of the Service Employees International Union and a current senior fellow at Columbia University. Podesta served as Counselor to President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff to former President Bill Clinton. He is currently Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
