Trump Threatens RICO Charges Against George Soros

Amid escalations in Donald Trump’s use of lawfare against his political opponents, the president on Wednesday threatened to hit George Soros with charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO—citing long-running MAGA conspiracy theories about the Democratic megadonor.

On Truth Social Wednesday, Trump said George Soros and his son Alexander “should be charged with RICO because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America.”

Trump and his allies frequently claim that popular displays against their agenda must be the result of an astroturfed campaign—with George Soros often posited as the mastermind.

The Soros’s Open Society Foundations issued a statement in response to Trump’s threat. The philanthropy network does “not support or fund violent protests,” and the president’s remarks about its founder, George Soros, and chair, Alex Soros, are “outrageous,” the statement says.

Going back to 2018, Trump claimed that demonstrators against Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination were “paid for by Soros and others.” Similar claims were touted by the MAGA right amid the Women’s March in 2017 and protests against police brutality in 2020.

More recently, Trump said constituents who spoke out at Republican town halls were “paid troublemakers.” Protesters against Trump’s ongoing federal takeover of Washington, D.C., were too, according to the president, bought by Democrats.

Conspiracy theories related to Soros came to the fore in particular during the June demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles.

Trump repeatedly claimed protesters were “paid insurrectionists or agitators or troublemakers.” Meanwhile, MAGA social media circulated conspiracy-minded posts, such as photos of pallets of bricks (actually taken in New Jersey and Malaysia) as purported evidence of Soros-funded groups arming L.A. protesters with bricks “to be used by Democrat militants against ICE.”

Now, the president suggests such paranoid claims are sturdy enough to serve as the foundation for RICO charges. “Be careful, we’re watching you!” the president wrote, before signing off.

This story has been updated.