Latest news with #OpenSocietyFoundations
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Meet the former Soros foundation exec connecting Obama world with Mamdani campaign
A former top executive for liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations (OSF) between 2017 and 2020 is back in the spotlight amid reports highlighting his involvement with Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral campaign and connecting Obama world to the campaign. Patrick Gaspard, who has served in several high-profile political positions, including advising former President Barack Obama's historic 2008 campaign, serving as the Democratic National Committee's executive director, and being tapped as the Center for American Progress (CAP) president in 2021, has been informally advising Mamdani on the side and recently introduced Obama campaign architect David Axelrod to him, a recent New York Times article revealed. A New York Times opinion piece that was published on Wednesday explained how Obama world operatives were starting to coalesce around Mamdani and have been in communication with his campaign behind the scenes. Obama reportedly called Mamdani after his Democratic primary victory in June, offering advice about the importance of governing and giving constituents optimism in dark times. Gaspard, who was reportedly at Mamdani's victory party in late June, has played a growing role advising Mamdani and accompanying him to meetings, the piece noted. He also introduced Axelrod to Mamdani last month when the former Obama advisor visited the campaign headquarters in Manhattan. "What I found when I went over to that office was a familiar spirit that I hadn't seen in a while of just determined, upbeat idealism," Axelrod told the Times. "You may not agree with every answer he's giving, or every idea he has, but he's certainly asking the right questions, which is how do we make the country work for working people?" Earlier this year, Fox News Digital reported that the Mamdani campaign has been dishing out millions to a media strategist with ties to the Obama world through Axelrod and David Plouffe. The piece also noted how former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau and former Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer, who are often referred to as the "Obama bros" of the "Pod Save America" podcast, were in contact with a top Mamdani advisor and have been keeping close tabs on the race. While Obama world's influence could play a major role over the next couple of months ahead of the general election, Gaspard's past ties to the Soros foundations could help Mamdani tap into wealthy donors who support his agenda. Gaspard, who made millions of dollars serving as the OSF president between 2017 and 2020, has been a staunch defender of Soros, saying earlier this year that he was "inspired by the selection of my friend George Soros, who is one of our leading defenders of inclusive and accountable democracy and vibrant civil society," after then-President Joe Biden announced he would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "His accomplishments, in the face of distortions and threats from extremists, will be lauded well into the future," he continued. In a long 2023 X thread, Gaspard also attempted to deflect blame away from Soros amid reports that Soros and his network were pouring millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of radical DAs and far-left groups that emphasized social justice programs and gave lenient sentences to violent criminals. "George Soros is as concerned about public safety as anyone else. But he recognizes that our criminal justice system is badly broken, and in need of new ideas and new approaches – a view that enjoyed bipartisan consensus in the before times," Gaspard claimed. "It is also important to note that in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and all over the country voters keep electing and re-electing reformers," he continued. "To suggest that the reason they are doing so is because of Soros contributions is an insult to ordinary people." The Mamdani campaign has already benefited from several far-left groups who have received tens of millions of dollars in funding from OSF over the years, including the democratic socialist-friendly Working Families Party, which has received over $23 million from OSF, the New York Post reported last month. The report went on to say that Gaspard has played a "key role" in guiding Mamdani through the campaign and listed several of the groups that are aligned with or have endorsed Mamdani, which include Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Make The Road Action and Community Voices Heard. Jewish Voice for Peace Action has established itself as one of the most prominent groups in the country speaking out against Israel and Fox News Digital previously reported that the group was active at college campuses in 2024 backing anti-Israel protests. Influence Watch describes the group as "a left-wing, nominally Jewish group that opposes U.S. assistance to the state of Israel and supports allowing Palestinians to live on land within Israel vacated by Arabs during the Israeli War of Independence." The Center for American Progress, Fox News Digital previously reported, played a significant role in staffing and policymaking in the Biden administration, with at least 70 CAP employees leaving the group to fill key posts within the administration. Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign and Gaspard for comment.
Russia Today
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
US congressman demands Soros testify over Russiagate plot against Trump
Representative Tim Burchett has formally requested that billionaire financier George Soros and his associate Leonard Benardo, senior vice president at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), testify before Congress regarding their alleged involvement in the 2016 'Russiagate' affair targeting Donald Trump. In a letter sent Friday to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Burchett (R-Tenn.) urged the panel to call Soros and Benardo to a public hearing and to subpoena them if they refuse to appear voluntarily. The request follows the declassification of documents by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which allegedly link Soros's OSF to a broader effort to discredit Trump's presidential campaign and derail his first term in office. 'As you know, DNI Tulsi Gabbard recently declassified evidence of a conspiracy by former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the national security apparatus to manufacture and politicize intelligence to subvert President Trump and the will of the American people,' Burchett wrote. 'Included in this evidence is a concerning email allegedly from Leonard Benardo… plotting to discredit the incoming Trump Administration.' You are welcome Ma'am. Burchett emphasized OSF's ongoing influence in US elections and said the American public deserves answers. 'Should they refuse the invitation, I encourage you to use subpoena powers. Americans deserve answers into the subversion of our institutions by malicious actors,' he added. The newly declassified 29-page annex to Special Counsel John Durham's 2023 report, released this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, alleges that the Clinton campaign, with help from OSF-linked figures, concocted the narrative of Russian interference to damage Trump politically. Emails attributed to Benardo reportedly detail efforts to disseminate unverified claims through FBI-adjacent tech firms like CrowdStrike and various media outlets. The FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane, its Trump-Russia probe, despite allegedly having obtained credible intelligence about the plot. Critics argue that the agency's failure to properly scrutinize intelligence pointing to a politically motivated smear campaign fueled years of disinformation, political polarization, and unjustified sanctions against Moscow. President Trump responded Friday by calling the affair 'the biggest scandal in American history,' accusing the Obama administration of treason and vowing accountability. Moscow, for its part, has long denied meddling in the 2016 election and insists the Russiagate narrative was a fabricated pretext for confrontation.
Sky News AU
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Hillary Clinton exposed for approving Russiagate hoax to ‘smear' Trump in the 2016 election
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton has been exposed for approving a plan to 'smear' Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. The plan, reportedly hatched by a top campaign adviser, used false claims of Trump secretly colluding with Russia to steal the election. On Thursday, new declassified documents linked Clinton to the Russia-collusion hoax as she attempted to distract Americans from her email scandal. The declassified documents were a compilation of emails and memos acquired by the Obama administration. The memo and emails were obtained in the lead-up to the 2016 election and laid out 'confidential conversations' between DNC leaders. Then-Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Open Society Foundations, funded by George Soros, were also included in the conversations.
New York Post
01-08-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
‘Russiagate' was never anything more than Hillary Clinton's paid-for lies
Newly declassified intelligence files bring fresh, hard proof that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign completely cooked up Russiagate — a total lie that top intelligence officials nonetheless proceeded to amplify, and that all too many Democrats still believe. These memos from the first half of 2016 center on 'confidential conversations' between members of the Democratic National Committee and top staff at George Soros' Open Society Foundations — and the info is damning. 'Julie [sic] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump,' runs one quote of July 25. 'Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.' That shows a clear expectation that government agencies would be colluding in the scheme — making it far more than just a campaign trick. Yet the campaign's plans included 'raising the theme of 'Putin's support for Trump' ' and 'subsequently steering public opinion toward the notion that it needs to equate' Russian influence campaigns with actual hacking of voting machines. Not only did the memos envision the FBI eventually helping out, that later happened under bureau boss Jim Comey and his No. 2, Andrew The memos also envisioned the FBI eventually supporting the phony scandal — as later actually happened under bureau boss Jim Comey and his No. 2, Andrew McCabe. Clinton OK'd the scheme to create a distraction from the scandal of her email abuses as secretary of state — and then-President Barack Obama and his top intelligence officials were all briefed on the campaign's intentions. Yet Obama, Comey, CIA chief John Brennan and others all seemed to forget about it when the planted 'information' began rolling in later in 2016, prompting the absurd Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Donald Trump's campaign and (eventually) the Mueller investigation that plagued Trump's first two years as president. Brennan and Comey even made the Steele Dossier — an utter fiction ordered up by the Clinton campaign — part of the official, post-election 'intelligence finding' that cherry-picked info to claim that Russia had worked to elect Trump. Clinton's scheme was a dirty trick (that failed to turn the 2016 election for her), but it was Obama & Co. who truly betrayed the American people here. Obama actively spread the lie in his final days in office, telling a pack of progressive journalists that 'the Russia thing is a problem,' and suggesting the new prez could have a 'relationship with a foreign entity' that 'might shade' policy. Then came the endless string of New York Times and Washington Post stories citing anonymous 'current and former intelligence officials' — completely fake news that consumed the nation's capital in Trump-Russia hysteria. It's all now been 100% debunked, but only after kneecapping a presidency — and with all too many Americans failing to realize even now that it was nothing but lies from start to finish. Obama, Brennan and the rest pulled off the greatest smear campaign in American history: For shame.
Sky News AU
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Hillary Clinton OK'd plan to ‘smear' Donald Trump with Russia collusion, documents prove
Hillary Clinton signed off on a plan hatched by a top campaign adviser to 'smear' then-candidate Donald Trump with false claims of Russian collusion and distract from her own mounting email scandal during the 2016 campaign, according to explosive intelligence files declassified Thursday. The 24-page intelligence annex was compiled from memos and emails obtained by the Obama administration in the lead-up to Election Day that laid out 'confidential conversations' between leaders of the Democratic National Committee — including then-Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz — and liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations. The plot, the brainchild of the Clinton campaign's then-foreign policy adviser, Julianne Smith, included 'raising the theme of 'Putin's support for Trump'' and 'subsequently steering public opinion toward the notion that it needs to equate' the Russian leader's political influence campaign with actual hacking of election infrastructure. Smith would go on to serve as former President Joe Biden's ambassador to NATO. 'I don't have any comment,' she told The Post when reached by phone Thursday. Open Society senior vice president Leonard Benardo was looped in on the scheme and laid out its intended effect in a series of emails in late July 2016. 'Julie [sic] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump,' Benardo was quoted as writing July 25. 'Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.' Two days later, Benardo wrote: 'HRC approved Julia's idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,' an apparent reference to revelations of a massive state-sponsored doping campaign by Russia following the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. 'The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue,' Benardo also stated. 'In absence of direct evidence, Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect will supply the media, and GRU [Russia's foreign intelligence arm] will hopefully carry on to give more facts.' Special counsel John Durham uncovered the files during a multi-year probe into intelligence activities during the 2016 election. Durham consulted the FBI and CIA, both of which assessed that the information was 'likely authentic' but couldn't corroborate exact copies of the Benardo emails with Open Society Foundations. The CIA also determined that the intelligence was not 'the product of Russian fabrications.' 'Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign's efforts to tie Trump to Russia,' Durham concluded. The Trump-Russia investigation was part of what a March 2016 memo included in the annex described as a 'two-prong DP [Democratic Party] opposition [that] is focused on discrediting Trump…. [a]mong other things, the Clinton staff, with support from special services, is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and the 'Russian Mafia.'' The 'special services' cited in one of the memos referred to intelligence activities of Obama's CIA and FBI, which may have included the work of 'Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.' The memos also claim then-President Barack Obama was 'put[ing] pressure on FBI Director James Comey through Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch' to wrap up the probe of Clinton's use of a private email server to receive highly classified information while secretary of state. 'Obama,' a January 2016 memo read, 'has no intention to darken the final part of his presidency and 'legacy' by the scandal surrounding the main contender from the [Democratic Party].' The March 2016 memo claimed the 44th president had 'sanctioned the use of all administrative levers to remove possibly negative effects from the FBI investigation of cases related to the Clinton Foundation and the email correspondence in the State Department.' In December 2016, Obama ordered a post-election intelligence assessment of nefarious Russian activity surrounding that year's election. That assessment, published in January 2017 included — over the objections of senior CIA officials — details from the Steele dossier, an opposition research project funded in part by Clinton's campaign and the DNC. In March 2016, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe shared the memos with senior officials at the Department of Justice, suggesting a plot to launch an investigation based on the Democratic campaign document. 'During the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated … technical structures … in particular, the Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect companies, from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications,' one Benardo email read. Durham concluded: 'The Office's best assessment is that the … emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based Think Tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment, and others.' Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other members of the US Intelligence Community declassified the Durham annex at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). 'Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton's political gain, which was ultimately done through the Steele Dossier and other means,' Grassley said in a statement. 'These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years. History will show that the Obama and Biden administration's law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump,' he added. 'This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history. The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.' Ratcliffe said in a statement that the files — some of which came from the CIA — showed 'a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump's presidency.' Bondi and Patel insisted that the public disclosures would restore Americans' trust in the government and provide accountability. 'This Department of Justice, alongside the CIA, is committed to truth and transparency and will continue to support good-faith efforts by Congress to hold our government accountable,' Bondi said. 'Chairman Grassley is leading by example and shining light on critical issues of great interest to the American people.' 'The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax and the political abuse of our justice system it exposed,' added Patel. 'Today's declassification and release of documents tied to the Durham report is another step toward that accountability.' 'I'm grateful to Chairman Grassley for his steadfast leadership on this issue, and I look forward to our continued partnership in exposing one of the most shameful frauds ever perpetrated on the American public.' The Post reached out to Benardo, reps for Clinton and the Open Society Foundations for comment. Originally published as Hillary Clinton OK'd plan to 'smear' Donald Trump with Russia collusion, documents prove
