Two liberal nonprofits leading protests against President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., crime crackdown have deep financial ties to Soros funding, according to a new watchdog report. Community Change and Community Change Action, which organized this week’s “Free DC” demonstrations, received $12.6 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
The groups also took in $5.6 million from Arabella Advisors and $1.9 million from the Tides Foundation between 2020 and 2023. Soros has faced criticism for using his network to bankroll progressive prosecutors across America, contributing over $40 million to elect district attorneys in major cities now plagued by crime. Baltimore’s violent crime rates dropped only after its Soros-backed prosecutor was removed from office in 2022.
Arabella and Tides have histories of funding radical causes. The Tides Foundation supported a fiscal sponsor of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a group sanctioned in the U.S. for aiding terrorists. Arabella funnels billionaire cash into progressive lobbying, activism, and elections.
“It is ironic that a protest to ostensibly ‘Free DC’ was hosted by Community Change, a group funded by massive amounts of outside dark money to push a pro-crime agenda,” said Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland. She added, “D.C. is facing shootings, carjackings, and assaults, and yet progressive groups like the Pritzker Foundation, George Soros, and the Arabella Network all spend millions of dollars to manufacture protests that weaken our communities.”
President Trump announced Monday he is deploying the National Guard and placing the D.C. police under federal control to “reestablish law, order, and public safety,” declaring, “This is Liberation Day in D.C. And we’re going to take our capital back.”