Republicans use antisemitic attack to play down allegations Trump committed crimes

Former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies are using an antisemitic attack against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The prosecutor and a New York grand jury reportedly may soon indict the former president on charges of falsifying business records.

Trump has been under investigation for allegedly falsifying business records to hide his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

Trump blasted Bragg in a March 10 post on his Truth social networking site, calling him “A RACIST, SOROS BACKED D.A., WHO LETS MURDERERS, RAPISTS, AND DRUG DEALERS WALK FREE, AND WHO HAS PRESIDED OVER THE BIGGEST VIOLENT CRIME WAVE IN THE HISTORY OF NYC.”

Statistics show New York City has significantly lower crime rates today than it did in the early 1990s.

Trump also claimed Monday that “District Attorney Alvin Bragg received in EXCESS OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS from Radical Left Enemy of ‘TRUMP,’ George Soros.”

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Tayor Greene peddled “Enemy of the State” campaign merchandise with a tweet on Monday saying, “George Soros puppet and Democrat activist Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has declared us all Enemies of State by declaring war on MAGA.”

According to a 2021 report in the New York Post, Bragg, a Democrat who became Manhattan’s first Black district attorney after receiving about 84% of the vote against Republican nominee Thomas Kenniff in November 2021, reportedly received about $500,000 in independent expenditures from Color of Change, a progressive political action committee. The PAC has received about $1.5 million from billionaire philanthropist George Soros since 2016, about 5% of its total funding over that time.

Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, has been a frequent bogeyman for Republicans. In recent years, they have often used the phrase “Soros backed” to attack Democratic candidates. Some have said this line of attack is an antisemitic dog whistle reference to conspiracy theories that wealthy Jews are secretly trying to buy elections. It also coincides with the spread online of debunked claims that Soros is a former Nazi who swore to “destroy the USA.”

“THIS Is how anti semitism takes root and spreads. What is a ‘Soros’ backed prosecutor? Soros is a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten tweeted in August 2022, when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) posted a criticism of “Soros backed prosecutors.”

Republicans in Congress have rallied behind Trump, suggesting that the allegations are politically motivated attacks from a biased “Soros-funded” prosecutor.

On Monday, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik demanded that Bragg answer to Congress. “Being a native New Yorker, being from my home state of New York, Alvin Bragg is as radical and left-wing as they come,” she told Breitbart. “Over a million dollars funded by George Soros.

And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz accused Bragg on Twitter of “weaponizing our legal system,” saying Soros invested “tens of millions of dollars into electing radicals like Alvin Bragg.”

An array of other Republican lawmakers, including Missouri Rep. Mark Alford; Texas Rep. Lance Gooden; Texas Rep. Ronnie Jackson; Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt; Florida Sen. Rick Scott; and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, used a similar line of attack against Bragg.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also joined in.

“I have no interest in getting involved in some manufactured circus by some Soros-DA,” he said at a news conference on Monday. “I don’t know what’s going to happen but I do know this: the Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor.”

On Monday evening, Trump urged supporters to sign a petition opposing any legal charges against him and to send him $3,300 in campaign contributions, the legal maximum.

A federal special counsel is currently investigating an array of allegations of crimes by Trump, including matters related to trying to steal the 2020 election and improper handling of classified documents.

Trump is reportedly also under investigation in Georgia for allegedly attempting to unlawfully overturn the state’s 2020 election result.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.