CRC News: Capital Research media appearances for June 2026

The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research Center.

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New York Post— George Soros and son Alex have funneled staggering $103M into midterms so far, on track to shatter spending record

In previous election cycles, the Open Society Action Fund’s cash flowed to groups backing lefty stars like “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and embattled pal Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), but its tax filings for 2025 aren’t yet available.

Control of the dark money Democracy PAC where the bulk of the family’s money went changed before the 2024 presidential election, with the elder Soros handing over the reins of his empire to his “more political” son Alex Soros, the fourth of five children.

“He wants to be more political than his dad, this is the first midterm cycle where he is in control,” Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told The Post.

“George is not in control, he hasn’t been in control in some time.”

[. . .]

George Soros, who President Trump singled out in September when he ordered the FBI to crack down on “left-wing terrorism,” has been the driving force behind extremist campaigns in the United States and abroad.

He pumped more than $15 million into pro-Hamas organizations behind campus protests, funded groups supplying last month’s violent anti-ICE protestors at Delaney Hall with military gear and spent more than $7 million pushing for a litany of soft on crime bills that could spring Gotham’s worst killers like notorious “Son of Sam.”

“The Soros family is angrier than ever at American politics,” said Thayer. “They would prefer to remake America into something entirely different.”

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CBS News— Ohio voting rights group facing criminal fraud investigation, sources say

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative over the years has received donations from progressive groups such as New Venture Fund and the Tides Foundation, according to tax records filed with the IRS. Both of those groups have received scrutiny in the past from Republicans over financial mismanagement allegations.

In 2017, a paid canvasser for Ohio Organizing Collaborative pleaded guilty for involvement in a fraudulent voter registration scheme.

Another donor to the group has been the Voter Registration Project, tax records show. That group was previously accused by the conservative-leaning Capital Research Center of violating its nonprofit status by leading an effort to register millions of voters who helped Joe Biden win in 2020.

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Inside Philanthropy— A Chat with Joe Sciortino of the Schmidt Family Foundation

[IP:] Some major donors — such as Bezos, Zuckerberg and Gates, to varying degrees – have backed away from climate. Others have been really quiet. By contrast, Wendy Schmidt’s been more vocal. She certainly is still working on climate and DEI (which the foundation calls IDEA). Why has Schmidt been so vocal? And why does the institution, and Wendy, feel able to be vocal?

[Joe Sciortino:] She talks a lot about how important it is to make sure we restore science to its proper place in society and make it a priority. That’s a firm conviction, and it informs a lot of what the foundation does. She feels on very solid ground to talk about climate change from a scientific perspective, and that’s neither political nor sensational nor radical. These are facts we all need to contend with. 

Like I said earlier, we’re not switching strategies, we’re not retracting grantmaking. We feel like it’s very important that we still stay the course on this. I can’t really speak to the way other funders or other climate funders aren’t doing as much, or if they aren’t doing as much. I haven’t been in those conversations.

[IP:] Has the foundation faced any blowback, whether from the Trump administration, conservative activists or others?

[JS:] No. We’ve been, like many, named [by the Capital Research Center]. Other than that, nothing.

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The Federalist— America250 Run Like A ‘Slush Fund’ For Democrat Consulting Firms During Biden Years

America250 for a time was a “congressionally controlled group paying large sums to consulting firms that also happen to do work for multiple members of Congress on the Democrat side” and appeared to be “a slush fund for very powerful Democrat consulting firms,” Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center, told The Federalist.

“It seems as if they went and found the two communication firms that are best at selling anti-American messages to run the American campaign,” he continued, adding it would be like hiring Democrat funding platform ActBlue to do the job. “They can’t be faulted for saying that they’re not good at doing consulting — they are — they have led some very successful left-wing campaigns over the years, but not anything that really screams ‘I love America.’”

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Philanthropy Daily—Thy Banners Make Tyranny Tremble: A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration

At Capital Research Center, Ken Braun tracks NGO hatred of nuclear energy. From the report:

In spite of this, and despite years of lavish subsidies for wind and solar electricity, nuclear power remains America’s single largest emissions-free electricity source, generating more annual kilowatts than wind and solar combined. If the will were there to increase America’s production of CO₂-free power generation, then there is no better option than building a lot of nuclear reactors. The United States clearly has the ability and wealth to match and eclipse the Chinese nuclear program. Like the French, we could generate at least 70 percent of our electricity from nuclear power, or even more.

The anti-energy NGOs, all of them gravely concerned about the impact of CO₂ emissions, are a major reason this is not happening. They also deserve blame for America’s abandonment of its nuclear energy leadership over the last half century. The Sierra Club is “unequivocally opposed” to nuclear power and claims it is “uniquely dangerous.” Over the last decade hundreds of other American NGOs have made similar statements, engaged in legal actions opposing nuclear power, or otherwise tried to impede it. The combined annual revenue of this anti-nuclear, anti-energy movement now exceeds $3.4 billion.

That means these enemies of American energy, and nuclear power in particular, are collecting an average of $9.3 million per day.

Their claims do not match reality.

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CBN News (video)—Dark Money Fueling Riots: Treasury Cracks Down on Billionaire Funding

The U.S. Treasury Department is moving aggressively to cut off the flow of funds to ANTIFA and other radical groups behind violent anti-ICE clashes, such as the chaos at Delaney Hall in New Jersey. Who is really bankrolling these violent demonstrations—and what will it take to stop them from undermining American democracy?

Capital Research Center President Scott Walter, author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America, calls Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s push for greater transparency in nonprofit grants a strong first step. But Walter warns more is urgently needed—especially full disclosure of foreign money pouring into U.S. nonprofits. “Left, right, or center, Americans agree: we cannot allow foreign interests or shadowy donors to fuel street violence and manipulate our politics.”

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The Federalist— ActBlue Refuses To Answer Congress’s Questions About Its Foreign Donation Pipeline: Foreign actors should have no influence on our elections. House officials shouldn’t step on the brakes until they get answers. (An opinion essay from Parker Thayer of the Capital Research Center.)

Since its founding in 2004, ActBlue has raised nearly $19 billion for Democrat candidates and left-wing groups. That success has made the organization one of the most influential fundraising platforms in American politics. But with that influence comes an obligation to maintain rigorous safeguards and transparency. Unfortunately, ActBlue falls flat on both of those fronts.

For starters, the organization claims it does not allow donations from undisclosed sources, particularly foreign groups. Yet an internal investigation from The New York Times found that for years, ActBlue failed to adequately vet certain contributions from abroad, even when donor identities could not be fully verified.

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National Legal and Policy Center—Will the $300 Million Soros Pledge Subsidize Terrorism?

A report released last September by the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center (CRC) concluded that the Open Society Foundations during 2016-23 gave more than $80 million to groups “tied to terrorism or extremist violence.” Co-authored by CRC Senior Fellow Ryan Mauro and writer-editor Scott Walter, the study cited seven groups that were awarded a combined more than $23 million “that directly assist domestic terrorism and criminality” in the U.S, including engaging in or providing material support to “violence, property destruction, economic sabotage, harassment” and other crimes meeting the definition of terrorism. Another more than $50 million went to grantees that endorse terrorist organizations or have cultivated links to them. And yet another $9 million-plus went to groups that, though not openly supportive of terrorists, have materially aided allied front groups and individuals.

This includes the Center for Third World Organizing, which the Capital Research Center indicates as having received $400,000 in general support from OSF. The CTWO specializes in “direct action” (i.e., violent confrontation) and boasts, “We trained thousands, supported over 100 organizations,” during the “uprisings” of 2020-21. Its “training,” conducted with help from anarcho-communist groups such as the Ruckus Society and the BlackOUT Collective, consisted of teaching the finer points of sabotage and vandalism. On a far larger scale, the Soros network provided the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of well over 100 black-led organizations, including Black Lives Matter, with a whopping $18 million in 2021 through a pair of fiscal sponsors, the Common Counsel Foundation ($15 million) and NEO Philanthropy, Inc. ($3 million). Another recipient was a 501(c)(4) group, the Sunrise Movement, which received at least $2 million from the Soros network. Sunrise activists used much of that money to partner with Antifa in the Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest Coalition, a campaign, as the CRC noted, “in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments.” The Sunrise Movement received a combined $750,000 in 2020 from Democracy PAC (at the time headed by George Soros) and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4), Soros-supported dark money group.

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truthout— Is Affordability a Climate Issue? Philadelphia Hunger Strikers Said Yes: A recent hunger strike in Philadelphia demonstrated the expanding scope of environmental justice organizing.

In New York, Sunrise Movement activists confronted Sen. Chuck Schumer over his links to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “AIPAC has corrupted our democracy and bought off our politicians,” the Sunrise Movement wrote in a post, “and working people are paying the price.” In Los Angeles, Sunrise Movement members participated in a mass direct action to protest Home Depot’s collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of the Boycott Home Depot Coalition. Last year, the group formally expanded its mandate to include combatting authoritarianism. At the same time, Sunrise was labeled a “pro-terror group” by the far right Capital Research Center.

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The Federalist— Meet The Left-Wing Organization Influencing Federal Judges On Science Litigation: A Federalist inquiry into the Federal Judicial Center uncovered the influence of a left-wing advocacy group in a manual advising judges.

A new inquiry into the FJC unearthed that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — a left-wing advocacy group masquerading as an objective science organization — influenced the FJC’s aforementioned science manual. In line with The Federalist’s prior reporting, this investigation also uncovered that several of the AAAS fellows who worked on the manual have a history of supporting left-wing ideology.

[. . .]

According to the Capital Research Center (CRC), the AAAS’s origins can be traced back to the mid-19th century, when it was created to “unify all scientific fields across the United States” and “rais[e] further resources for scientific inquiry.” The group later shifted its focus in the decades that followed from solely pursuing research funding to “general policy lobbying.”

During this step into activism, the AAAS “began to tilt towards socialism and the Soviet Union” in the late 1930s, according to CRC. The nonprofit watchdog noted the left-wing science group’s annual president at the time, Walter Bradford Cannon, “expressed his sympathies for socialism as a model of the scientific economy and society of the future, a position many of his fellow ‘science-activists’ in the AAAS shared.”

The AAAS has carried its partisan agenda forward by increasing its involvement in left-wing “‘science-activism,’ ideological activism performed in the guise of promoting science.” The group was notably involved in the 2017 “March for Science” that protested the first Trump administration’s pro-energy policies.

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Daily Signal— Taxpayer Dollars Backed Parts of Coalition Suing Over Trump Immigration Enforcement

The nature of the statute makes it different from many of the politically oriented lawsuits that have amassed from groups on the left since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, said Robert Stilson, senior research analyst at the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank.

“The Federal Tort Claims Act is for individuals wronged by government employees, and it could be legitimate complaints,” Stilson told the Daily Signal. “I wouldn’t call it lawfare. On the other hand, Unidos is clearly politicized. Democracy Forward is clearly politicized.”

UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, has received tens of millions in funding through government grants. The UnidosUS website contends that federal immigration enforcement itself is rooted in structural racism.

“Immigration laws in this country are often designed to keep Latino immigrants out, or when allowed, treated as disposable, marginalized, and often illegal,” the website says.

A UnidosUS spokesperson said public funding should not deter litigation.

“Receiving public funding does not limit an organization’s ability to support accountability under the law,” the UnidosUS spokesperson told the Daily Signal. “Across the ideological spectrum, organizations have long relied on the courts to ensure government actions comply with the law and the Constitution. Congress established the Federal Tort Claims Act to provide a remedy when individuals are harmed by the wrongful acts of federal employees, and ensuring communities can access these legal protections is central to our mission.”

In 2023, the group received $11.2 million from taxpayers, or about 20% of its budget, according to the Capital Research Center. From 2008 to 2017, the federal government provided about $38 million to UnidosUS. The group received no grants from 2018 through 2020 during the first Trump administration. But during the Biden administration, the organization received $35.9 million in federal grants from 2021 through 2023.

“Unidos is a good illustration of sending significant federal grant money to recipients with openly political agendas,” Stilson said. “It’s sending taxpayers’ money to groups representing one side of the political spectrum.”

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Washington Examiner—Antifa leaders panic after DOJ pursues conspiracy charges against Minnesota operatives

Some extremism researchers expect the conspiracy case to expose antifa as a real and organized threat, debunking the myth that antifa is merely an idea.

Capital Research Center president Scott Walter said the investigation’s findings will “blow up the ridiculous lie that antifa doesn’t exist.”

“Antifa does exist but in a decentralized way,” Walter said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “And it works very hard to maintain what its soldiers call ‘operational security,’ so that their enemies can’t figure out what they’re doing, who they are, and where they are.”

Walter noted that antifa activists are particularly alarmed about the FBI infiltrating the Minneapolis cell’s Signal group chats, as many other antifa groups rely on the supposedly secure messaging platform to plan criminal activities.

“The feds have penetrated into the encrypted messaging of these underground networks, and they’re terrified because that is where the evidence is of their crimes,” Walter said. “To prove a conspiracy, you have to prove these people were planning crimes and then carried out those crimes.”

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TownHall—Americans Should Welcome Legitimate Investigations Into Alleged Voter Registration Fraud (Opinion essay from Capital Research Center president Scott Walter.)

Confidence in our elections is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue.

That’s why Americans should welcome news that the FBI is reportedly investigating allegations of voter registration fraud involving the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. According to multiple reports, federal agents executed search warrants and seized documents and electronic records as part of a fraud-related investigation. Importantly, the existence of an investigation does not establish guilt, and no conclusions should be drawn until all the facts are known and due process has run its course.

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Daily Wire—Fake MAGA? Anti-AI Group’s Conservative Branding Crumbles: The populist packaging is familiar. The contents are something else entirely.

Another senior figure heading the group’s Left-leaning outreach worked to turn out voters for Kamala Harris’ presidential bid. Humans First has acknowledged the mixed composition, describing itself as nonpartisan — a significant walk-back from its “America First AI policy” positioning.

More telling than its membership, however, is the digital infrastructure undergirding the operation. An oversight on the group’s own website — an uncensored privacy policy — exposed its use of Action Network, a platform that markets itself explicitly as a tool for building “progressive” political power, as pointed out by Capital Research Center investigator Parker Thayer.

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Santa Inez Valley News—Judge hands Newsom regulators $100M defeat in fintech lending fight | Guest Commentary

Early this year, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a prominent left-of-center consumer advocacy organization, released a 12-page report targeting OppFi by name.

Much of CRL’s funding has come from Herb and Marion Sandler, whose lending practices got them labeled among the “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis” by Time magazine. Critics of the group have long alleged its creation was an effort to distract from the Sandlers’ role in predatory lending and focus attention on financial services companies that offer competitor services to a credit union, Self-Help, also associated with the group.

But the Capital Research Center (CRC) — a right-of-center watchdog group — has called CRL “irresponsible” and “intimately tied to some of the worst actors in the lending business.” CRC adds that CRL’s “advocacy has too often hurt, not helped, the very people it claims to defend.”