Insider Trading, Color Revolutions, USAID Money-Laundering: What Could Soros Be Jailed For?
© AP Photo / Ferdinand Ostrop
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The Trump administration is turning up the heat on George Soros’ soft power empire amid revelations of his Open Society Foundations’ close-knit links to and alleged profiteering off USAID. Is there a case for convicting the 94-year-old benefactor and beneficiary of the US imperial project? If so, where does it lie?
Financial Crimes
Soros was found guilty of insider trading in France in 2002 for profiteering off the privatization of state-owned companies in the late 80s.
The financier engaged in large-scale currency speculation against the British pound, which earned him $1 bln and cost the British economy billions in losses, in 1992. “The Man who broke the Bank of England” was never charged.
Ex-Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has accused Soros of helping to spark the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis by engineering a currency collapse. Malaysia has strict criminal liability, including imprisonment for up to 10 years, for market manipulation, but Soros has not been prosecuted.
Political Manipulation
From the old Eastern Bloc in the 80s to countries worldwide from the 90s on, Soros has been charged with meddling in nations’ politics and helping foment color revolutions – from Ukraine and Georgia to Kyrgyzstan and Serbia going back over 40 years.
He’s even been accused of interfering in Western countries’ politics, from the anti-Brexit movement in the UK in 2015 to US elections since 2016.
Hundreds of Trump allies have been jailed on far softer election-related charges, with the DoJ sentencing a social media influencer to seven months in prison for using his 58,000 Twitter account to influence the 2016 vote.
Yet Soros, whose money has been used not only to meddle in US politics, but fund prosecutors trying to jail Trump, has yet to face any charges.
Defrauding US government?
Soros’ OSF have been linked to hundreds of millions in USAID spending to foment unrest worldwide starting from the 90s on.
The US Criminal Code threatens those engaged in an “agreement, combination or conspiracy to defraud the United States, or any department or agency thereof,” with up to 10 years in jail. But Soros somehow remains a free man.
