Hillary Clinton has aligned herself closely with a vision for America laid out by her benefactor — left-wing financier George Soros, who talks of “international governance,” more open borders, increased Muslim immigration and diminished U.S. global power.
The phrase “American exceptionalism” is not part of his agenda. He wrote in 1998: “The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.”
“We need some global system of political decision-making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy,” Mr. Soros wrote.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, he said, “Military power is of limited use in dealing with asymmetric threats such as terrorism.”
The Clinton-Soros symbiosis came into clearer focus this month with WikiLeaks’ release of thousands of hacked emails from John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman. Mr. Soros’ name comes up nearly 60 times.
The financial and ideological alliance is so complete that after Mr. Soros dined with Mrs. Clinton in 2014 and asked her to attend a liberal group’s fundraiser, her campaign manager, Robby Mook, wrote in an email, “I would only do this for political reasons (ie to make Soros happy).”
Rep. Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is co-chairman of Donald Trump’s congressional leadership caucus, said a vote for Mrs. Clinton is a vote for the Soros agenda.
“The fact that Hillary Clinton and her campaign are so closely aligned with George Soros and his radical agenda is serious cause for alarm,” Mr. Hunter told The Washington Times. “Publicly, it’s a relationship she’s never really talked up, but communications at least now reveal how closely aligned they are, and Americans deserve to know that a Clinton presidency means even more direct influence from George Soros.
“And as for an agenda, there probably won’t be much daylight between the two, and Americans should be concerned that a vote for Clinton is no different than a vote for George Soros for president,” Mr. Hunter said.
The Times reached out to the press offices for Mr. Soros and Mrs. Clinton but received no reply.
With a Forbes-pegged fortune of $24 billion, Mr. Soros is America’s — and the world’s — most prominent financial star in a constellation of liberal activist groups. They have funded anti-police protests, some of them violent; rhetorical attacks on conservatives and their media; open border initiatives; and efforts to control journalists’ reporting.
The Hungarian-born U.S. citizen grew even closer to Bill and Hillary Clinton after Mr. Clinton became president, all the while funneling millions of dollars to their campaigns and to those of other Democrats.
“I do now have great access in [the Clinton] administration,” Mr. Soros told PBS in 1995. “There is no question about this. We actually work together as a team.”
Mr. Soros has donated nearly $11 million to Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign and three main super PACS — USA Action, American Bridge 21st Century and Hillary for America, according to an analysis by The Washington Times.
His foundation has given up to $6 million to the Clinton Foundation, the global charity the Clintons set up that has proved to be a good networking tool to obtain paid speaking engagements. The Clintons have a personal net worth of $100 million to $150 million, most of it gained by giving speeches to bankers, corporations, colleges and trade associations.
Mr. Soros pumps money into a list of who’s who on the American left. They include Media Matters; MoveOn.org, which organized aggressive protests at Trump rallies; and the Center for American Progress, founded by Mr. Podesta. Institutions that educate future journalists also take Mr. Soros’ money.
A review of Mrs. Clinton’s private and public comments shows she has very much absorbed Mr. Soros’ grand plan for the world, a blueprint that hangs under the title “open societies.” His New York-based Open Societies Foundation is at the center of his philanthropy and politics.
Open borders
Mr. Soros has complained of national borders as an impediment to world ruling bodies.
He finances at least seven groups in the U.S. that promote open borders and mass immigration, according to the book “Shadow Party” by David Horowitz and Richard Poe.
WikiLeaks’ massive release of hacked campaign emails shows that in one of Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches to bankers, she pledged to work for open borders. Her “dream” presumedly means that the southern U.S. border would be a conduit for untold numbers of immigrants.
“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,” she told a closed-door audience at Brazilian bank Banco Tau in May 2013.
Illustrating how far Mrs. Clinton has moved to the Soros position is a 2003 statement in which she said she was “adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants.”
Conservative bloggers say one of Mr. Podesta’s emails shows him explaining how illegal immigrants can vote by obtaining driver’s licenses and attesting to U.S. citizenship at the polls. Noncitizen voting in federal elections is against U.S. law.
Muslim immigration
Mr. Soros is a big proponent of bringing more Muslims into Europe and, by extension, to America. He views Muslim immigrants as a savior for Europe because of the continent’s low birthrate.
He has funded private groups helping Muslims enter Germany and other countries, and he wants Europe to borrow billions of dollars to pay for resettling them. He wrote in the Australian newspaper last year that Europe should bring in 1 million Muslim refugees per year “for the foreseeable future.”
Hungary built walls to keep out Middle Eastern refugees, fearing they would turn the country from its “Christian roots” into an Islamic state.
“This invasion is driven, on the one hand, by people smugglers, and on the other by [human rights] activists who support everything that weakens the nation-state,” said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “This Western mindset and this activist network is perhaps best represented by George Soros.”
Mr. Soros told Bloomberg News: “Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
Mrs. Clinton said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that she wants to boost President Obama’s mark of 10,000 Syrian refugees resettled in the U.S. in one year to 65,000 — a 500 percent increase.
Anti-police protests
The Washington Times reported that groups that went to Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and stirred up anger during protests of the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown were funded by one of Mr. Soros’ umbrella grant-makers.
One recipient was the Organization for Black Struggle, which established the HandsUp United coalition, which helped create the protest chant, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Brown never put his hands up and assaulted a white police officer in the fatal altercation, according to a Justice Department report.
Mrs. Clinton is clearly in their corner. She has made statements supporting Black Lives Matter, whose followers call for violence against police officers, and scolded police across the board.
“Let’s admit it: There is clear evidence that African-Americans are disproportionately killed in police incidents compared to any other group,” she said in July.
“And surely we can all agree that’s deeply wrong and needs to change. And, yes, we do need to listen to those who say black lives matter,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She said during the primary election season, “There needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system. And that requires a very clear agenda for retraining police officers.”
The nation’s largest police union has endorsed Mr. Trump.
American sovereignty
Mr. Soros says one of his pet peeves is that the U.S. launches military operations against other nations yet jealously guards its own self-determination.
“We are willing to violate the sovereignty of other states in the name of universal principles, but we are unwilling to accept any infringement of our own sovereignty,” he wrote in 1999 in The Washington Post. “We need a new international authority that transcends the sovereignty of states to promote an open society.”
Mr. Soros castigates the United States for not subjecting its deployed armed service members to international courts.
He wrote: “We are willing to drop bombs on others from high altitudes, but we are reluctant to expose our own men to risk. We refuse to submit ourselves to any kind of international governance. We were one of seven countries that refused to subscribe to the International Criminal Court; the others were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen. We do not even pay our dues to the United Nations. This kind of behavior does not lend much legitimacy to our claim to be the world’s leader.”
In her private 2013 speech to Brazilian bankers, Mrs. Clinton said a “dream” of hers is to establish a “hemispheric common market.” Presumedly, this would be modeled after the European Union, which dictates economic policy to member countries. The U.S. would find itself obliged to follow the dictates of a bureaucracy made up of South and Central America, Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
The mission statement of Mr. Soros’ flagship operation — the Open Societies Foundation — is that it works “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people.”
One group Mr. Soros helped start with a $1 million-plus donation was MoveOn.org, which helped organize violent protests at Trump rallies last spring. It celebrated the cancellation of Mr. Trump’s Chicago rally in March because of protesters and their attacks on Trump supporters.
“Mr. Trump and the Republican leaders who support him and his hate-filled rhetoric should be on notice after tonight’s events,” MoveOn said. “To all of those who took to the streets of Chicago, we say thank you for standing up and saying enough is enough. To Donald Trump, and the GOP, we say, welcome to the general election.”
Mr. Soros adamantly opposed President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism. In a 2004 book blasting the Iraq War, “The Bubble of American Supremacy,” Mr. Soros described the 9/11 attacks this way:
“Admittedly, the terrorist attack was a historic event in its own right. Hijacking fully loaded airplanes and using them as suicide bombs was an audacious idea, and the execution could not have been more spectacular. The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center made a symbolic statement that reverberated around the word and the fact people could watch the event on their television sets endowed it with an emotional impact that no terrorist act had ever achieved.”
Mr. Soros and his Soros Fund Management made his fortune by trading currencies. France indicted him on charges of insider trading in the 1980s and fined him $2.6 billion. France’s highest court upheld his conviction. In Britain, he dumped so many pounds into the currency market that the media said he “broke the Bank of England.”
Mrs. Clinton said in 2004, “We need people like George Soros, who is fearless and willing to step up when it counts.”
Steven Milloy, publisher of JunkScience.com, said: “If she does win, she won’t need Soros or anyone else anymore. She will be ’Crooked Hillary’ unchained and beholden to no one. She may do Soros’ bidding, but he’s going to have to pay her to do it. She will service the left-wing ideological agenda to the extent she needs to maintain her voter base for 2020. But I see her focus being consolidation of power and money, or money and power.”
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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