{"id":226046,"date":"2025-10-03T11:26:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T18:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/?p=226046"},"modified":"2025-10-08T08:44:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:44:44","slug":"the-philanthropy-backed-think-tank-behind-trumps-soros-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/home\/the-philanthropy-backed-think-tank-behind-trumps-soros-investigation","title":{"rendered":"The Philanthropy-Backed Think Tank Behind Trump’s Soros Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last week, in yet another extraordinary move, President Donald Trump reportedly<\/a> ordered the Justice Department to investigate George Soros\u2019 Open Society Foundations<\/a>. The purported investigation appears to have been informed, at least in part, by the Capital Research Center<\/a>, a philanthropy-backed, 501c3 watchdog organization that calls itself \u201cAmerica\u2019s investigative think tank.\u201d                       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Capital Research Center (CRC), which was established in 1984, focuses on the work of foundations, charities and nonprofits, examining how these organizations \u201cspend money and get involved in politics and advocacy, often in ways that donors never intended and would find abhorrent,\u201d according to its website. This is a nod to conservative philanthropy\u2019s longstanding concern with donor intent. One wonders, however, what the conservative donors of yesteryear, so concerned with limiting government power, would think about how the Trump administration is using CRC\u2019s research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it broke the story<\/a> of the apparent investigation of OSF, the New York Times <\/em>reported that a Justice Department official had pointed to a CRC report \u201cas evidence for such investigations.\u201d In a later article<\/a>, the Times <\/em>characterized the targeting of OSF as \u201cpart of a broader effort by the Trump administration to cripple the financial and organizational infrastructure<\/a> supporting Democrat-aligned causes and candidates.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Trump also signed a presidential memorandum<\/a> that aims to establish \u201ca new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies \u2014 including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources and predicate actions behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems clear that the administration intends to embark on an unprecedented campaign to silence and punish a broad range of philanthropic funders it doesn\u2019t like \u2014 or at least to create the perception that this is its goal. CRC\u2019s research appears to be at the center of this campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CRC President Scott Walter acknowledged that CRC tends to focus more on organizations he characterized as \u201cleft.\u201d As he said in a recent interview, \u201cWhile we do cover both sides, I admit we report more on the left because it’s so badly under-covered by mainstream media.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sampling of CRC reports includes \u201cThe Rocky Mountain Institute\u2019s climate and DEI colonialism in Africa,\u201d \u201cThe Ford Foundation spends $20 million per month on lefty advocacy,\u201d and \u201cWhen Charities Betray America: How \u2018Pro-Palestinian\u2019 Protest Groups Promote Anti-Americanism.\u201d <\/strong>Just this week, CRC unveiled a new report, \u201cThe MacArthur Foundation helps violent criminals stay free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CRC\u2019s Walter also wrote a book about the philanthropy consulting organization Arabella Advisors, titled \u201cThe Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Transforming America.\u201d In August, the Gates Foundation internally announced<\/a> that it would no longer be working with Arabella, a move that Walter attributes, at least in part, to CRC\u2019s research. \u201cGates\u2019 decision is a sign of more to come,\u201d Walter wrote in The Hill<\/a>. \u201cIt suggests that conservative pressure tactics are sometimes able to tame big philanthropy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CRC also runs Influence Watch<\/a>, which provides summaries of \u201cpublic policy influencer\u201d organizations \u2014 on the left, right and in between \u2014 offering information on each group\u2019s history, goals, funding and controversies in which they’ve been involved. CRC is backed by many longstanding conservative foundations and donors. They include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, the John William Pope Foundation, the William E. Simon Foundation, and the sunsetting Searle Freedom Trust, as well as anonymous support through DonorsTrust, the conservative DAF sponsor, as well as through DAFs at places like Fidelity Charitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, Walter has recently briefed senior White House officials \u201con a range of donors, nonprofit groups and fundraising techniques.\u201d As Walter told IP<\/a>, \u201cI briefed them on our research, which is always public. I know it would make a wonderful novel if I were secretly plotting with some White House official, but I\u2019m not. I\u2019m just giving people our reports and answering questions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s campaign against the Open Society Foundations isn\u2019t a surprise: George Soros is a well-worn target of the right, and J.D. Vance has been a critic of progressive philanthropy<\/a> since before he became vice president. Since Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination, both the vice president and the president himself have stepped up their rhetoric against progressive funders<\/a> \u2014 specifically the Ford Foundation<\/a> and Open Society Foundations<\/a>. They have included these progressive funders in what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has called<\/a> \u201ca vast domestic terror movement\u201d that they blame for Kirk\u2019s murder \u2014 even though officials have repeatedly said they believe the alleged shooter acted alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CRC\u2019s report on Soros\u2019 Open Society Foundations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Capital Research Center\u2019s Soros report<\/a>, which was published last month, is headlined \u201cExclusive: Soros\u2019 Open Society gave $80 million to pro-terror groups.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Mauro, the CRC investigative researcher who wrote the report, described its findings in detail when he appeared with Glenn Beck on the Charlie Kirk Show<\/a>, which Beck guest hosted shortly after Kirk was killed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had some amazing findings, according to George Soros\u2019 own files from his Open Society Foundations,\u201d Mauro told Beck. (According to the report, CRC obtained the information from the Open Society Foundations\u2019 grants list.) \u201cMyself [and] my colleagues at Capital Research Center basically went through as many grants [and] as many funding streams as we could find. And here’s the smoking gun that we believe that President Trump, if he’s informed of it, can use to go after Soros\u2019 network of hate in various ways,\u201d Mauro said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the report\u2019s introduction, \u201cSince 2016, George Soros\u2019 Open Society Foundations (OSF), now run with his son Alexander, has poured over $80 million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence.\u201d The report continues, \u201cThis investigation documents how Open Society\u2019s philanthropy blurs into complicity \u2014 fueling groups that celebrate violent uprisings, train militants and endorse terrorist movements. The findings raise urgent questions for Congress, federal investigators and the IRS about whether Soros\u2019s flagship foundation, and its grantees, can continue to operate with tax-exempt status while bankrolling criminality at home and sanctioned entities abroad.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To back up these broad claims, CRC identifies groups that advocate for a variety of causes \u2014 including human rights, Palestinian rights, racial justice and climate protection \u2014 and attempts to link them to terrorism in some cases, and to violent protests in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the evidence the report provides to bolster its arguments is often thin and relies on guilt by association without solid evidence of actual criminal or terrorist actions on the part of either OSF or its grantees. It uses charged language, like that in the introduction above, to characterize the organizations\u2019 behavior and goals. To back up its claims, it frequently points to CRC’s own materials or to publications by outlets with right-wing agendas of their own, like Front Page<\/a>, an online news site published by the late conservative David Horowitz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report describes OSF grantee Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group based in the West Bank, as being \u201clong accused of ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the European Union and the United States designate as a foreign terrorist organization.\u201d When IP asked CRC\u2019s Scott Walter about those alleged ties, he pointed out that human rights activist Shawan Jabarin, who heads Al-Haq, previously worked with PFLP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Princeton Professor Kenneth Roth defended Al-Haq, with which he is familiar as the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. Roth acknowledged that Al-Haq is one of six Palestinian organizations that the Israeli government has designated as supposed terrorist groups. \u201cBut the Israeli government bandies about accusations of terrorism the same way it tries to silence critics with false allegations of antisemitism,\u201d Roth wrote recently in The Guardian<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI have worked with Al-Haq throughout my career and have always known it to be a fact-based, principled and peaceful organization that fairly and objectively investigates and reports on Israeli abuses in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another example, the report cites a guide created by several OSF grantees, \u201cThe Black and Palestinian Solidarity Organizing Toolkit\u201d (previously accessible as a Google doc, the guide is no longer publicly available). According to the report, the \u201cpro-Hamas\u201d guide \u201cglorifies the October 7 terror attacks in Israel.\u201d The report points to what it describes as \u201ca glorifying image of a Hamas paraglider associated with the October 7 attacks with the words \u2018Black Liberation for Palestinian Freedom\u2019 above it.\u201d In fact, the guide never mentions Hamas or the October 7 attacks. The \u201cglorifying image\u201d is a small picture of a figure ascending a barrier holding a Palestinian flag and what may be a paraglider handle \u2014 an actual paraglider is not evident in the frame. The actions the guide recommends are neither illegal or even menacing, and include the following: \u201cOrganize a speak-out at your elected official\u2019s office\u201d; \u201cHold a movie night in your community\u201d; and \u201cMake calls to congress every Tuesday and Wednesday.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claims that George Soros pays people to protest have been common in right-wing circles for some time, and the CRC report also appears to equate demonstrations and civil disobedience with violence, vandalism and property damage, without providing evidence that OSF-funded groups directly promote or engage in such activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to another OSF grantee, the Center for Third World Organizing, the report states: \u201cThe center offers training for \u2018direct actions,\u2019 a term that is used to refer to confrontational and usually violent and destructive protests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when spontaneous violence or vandalism does occur at a protest \u2014 as happens at times \u2014 it\u2019s a stretch to imply the funders of groups that helped organize such protests are somehow responsible. If that were the case, then donors who contributed to MAGA organizing efforts could be held somehow responsible for the violent destruction and assaults on police at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interpreting every line in the report and analyzing every action taken by the organizations CRC highlights goes beyond the scope of this article, and some of the materials it links to are no longer accessible online. But an initial reading raises questions about the evidence upon which the Trump administration may be basing its investigation of the Open Society Foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, Ryan Mauro, the report\u2019s author, is clearly confident in his analysis \u2014 and doesn\u2019t intend to stop with OSF. When he teased the report on The Glenn Beck Program<\/a> shortly after Kirk\u2019s assassination, he made this pronouncement: \u201cI think it’s safe to say that today, the counter-offensive begins.\u201d Mauro also had this warning<\/a> for other funders: \u201cAll the other big billionaire-funded organizations out there that are funding this type of filth, that are poisoning American civil society and spreading this type of hate that resulted in what happened a week ago \u2014 you’re on notice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another conversation<\/a>, Beck asked Mauro how long he thinks it will take the Justice Department to act. \u201cThe impression I get is that it’s very urgent, and Trump is definitely demanding immediate action, and he’s not the most patient man in the world,\u201d Mauro said. \u201cI think if it’s fully grasped what can be done through the Treasury Department and IRS with the tax-exempt situation, and if they were to have a meeting with folks who study this, like Capital Research Center and myself, it would not be hard for us to deliver the damning evidence that they need against organization after organization after organization. And one day, you\u2019ll just start hearing about dozens of groups and then dozens more groups having their statuses removed\u2026 It would be quite the fight, but well worth it \u2014 and one that I believe we would win.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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