The “No Kings” protests drew modest turnout in left-leaning cities like Portland, Boston, and Seattle. But behind the scenes, vast sums of dark money funded these events, and a politically charged shooting in Minnesota turned a weekend of protest into a national flashpoint. Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were seriously wounded, in an act linked to a suspect found with “No Kings” flyers.
The protests were organized by Indivisible, which received $14 million in 2023 alone. The Arabella Advisors network channeled at least $114.8 million to affiliated groups between 2019 and 2023. Major donors included George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. These funds paid for professional materials such as signs, masks, and even a protest songbook containing lyrics targeting President Trump.
Communist groups like the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization also took part. Both receive millions from Neville Roy Singham, a U.S.-born billionaire with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. According to investigative research, these radical groups aim to destabilize American society by stoking street-level unrest.
Los Angeles saw the most violence, with eight days of riots, over 500 arrests, and mass looting. A group called the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), which receives both dark money and taxpayer funding for immigration-related programs, played a central role. Though CHIRLA claimed its protest activity was funded separately, investigators found overlapping personnel and operations.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, 44-year-old Vance Boelter impersonated a police officer and carried out a targeted shooting. A former political appointee of Governor Tim Walz, Boelter had “No Kings” flyers in his vehicle and a list of nearly 70 political targets. He now faces multiple federal and state charges, including second-degree murder and attempted murder.
While early reports speculated about his political affiliations, investigators later found evidence that Boelter had supported both parties in the past, further complicating motives. Nonetheless, the materials in his vehicle tied him directly to the protest movement and raised serious concerns about the toxic influence of political extremism.
Experts have linked the protests to broader efforts aimed at undermining national stability. ICE raids in Los Angeles during the protests disrupted drug-money laundering operations involving illegal immigrants and fentanyl distribution networks. These operations are closely tied to the Mexican cartels and their Chinese suppliers, who provide precursor chemicals and production tools for synthetic narcotics.
With President Trump as a lightning rod, Democrat-aligned protest groups appear to offer disillusioned activists a sense of direction—funded, organized, and increasingly militant. The weekend’s violence and its financial backers reveal a troubling alliance between radical activists, hostile foreign interests, and left-wing billionaires determined to reshape America from the ground up.
