“He’s typically at or near the top, but in ’22, the money he gave went nowhere,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group in Washington. “It’s almost misleading to call him the top donor because he had almost no impact on the cycle.”
But his impact on political discourse has been outsize. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, both freshman Republicans, accused Mr. Soros of buying Mr. Bragg. The Anti-Defamation League pointed to social media posts on the far right that amplified such claims and that also jumped into open antisemitism, with claims like, “‘Jews don’t run the world.’ Meanwhile George Soros just got President Trump indicted.”
The ADL noted that dozens of fund-raising emails sent by the Trump campaign have mentioned Mr. Soros, using what the group called “explosive language” like “puppeteer” or “puppet master.”
“In any context, such language would be alarming,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “At a time when antisemitism in America has reached historic levels, this behavior isn’t just disturbing; it is indisputably dangerous.”
Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, called the attacks on his organization both antisemitic and racist, since they cast a Harvard-trained prosecutor as a stooge controlled by a Jewish billionaire.
The attacks have had an impact, he said. Funding for criminal justice reform groups was drying up as the issue became more partisan, he said. Now his group is spending money on security, monitoring threats on the internet and watching allies maintain their distance.
“It’s scary, and it’s tough, and it’s challenging,” Mr. Robinson said.
Conservative commentators say such claims are meant to shut down legitimate debate on the overreach of liberal, partisan prosecutors.
