(News Punch) George Soros praised his soft-on-crime district attorneys on Monday following news that crime has exploded in their districts. According to Soros, the district attorneys, who he has backed to the tune of millions of dollars, are making society “more effective and just” and when it comes to bankrolling them, he has “no intention of stopping.”
The Hungary-born Soros, 91, argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Sunday that the far-left agenda pushed by top prosecutors like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was both “effective” and “popular,” though he did not specify with whom exactly the DAs are popular. Criminals, most likely.
“This agenda includes prioritizing the resources of the criminal-justice system to protect people against violent crime. It urges that we treat drug addiction as a disease, not a crime. And it seeks to end the criminalization of poverty and mental illness,” he wrote, later adding: “The goal is not defunding the police but restoring trust between the police and the policed, a partnership that fosters the solving of crimes.”
Soros published the Wall Street Journal op-ed following a backlash against lax district attorneys that led San Francisco voters to recall DA Chesa Boudin over huge spikes in crimes including shoplifting, open-air drug dealing and broad-daylight assaults, often against Asian Americans. In Los Angeles, another recall effort is targeting DA George Gascon — who pocketed almost $3 million in campaign funds from Soros.
In Manhattan, DA Alvin Bragg— whose campaign received $1 million from Soros via the Color of Change political action committee — has come under fire for allowing habitual criminals walk free, while prosecuting ordinary New Yorkers for defending themselves.
In his op-ed, Soros blamed increases in crime across the nation on “a disturbing rise in mental illness among young people due to the isolation imposed by Covid lockdowns, a pullback in policing in the wake of public criminal-justice reform protests, and increases in gun trafficking.
“Many of the same people who call for more-punitive criminal-justice policies also support looser gun laws,” he added.
