For years, Glenn Beck has been obsessed with George Soros, regularly portraying the liberal billionaire philanthropist as some sort of evil genius and puppet master who has been behind countless efforts to destroy America. So naturally, when right-wing media outlets began reporting that Soros-linked figures had donated money to a super PAC supporting John Kasich, Beck seized upon the news.
On his radio show last week, Beck declared that Soros was backing Kasich in an effort to foment a brokered Republican convention, all for the purpose of sowing chaos.
"I know this," Beck said, "Soros, like the imams over in Iran, like the people over in Europe that are, what is it, The Coming Insurrection people, like Occupy Wall Street, like Black Lives Matter, they all want one thing, and that is chaos."
On his television show that night, Beck even hauled out his trusty chalkboard covered with a drawing of an octopus to highlight "the tentacles of George Soros" that now reached all the way into the Kasich campaign:
Behold "The Tentacles Of George Soros." And yes, it does now include John Kasich: pic.twitter.com/nRU7i64JPx
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 22, 2016
But apparently nobody at Beck's website got the memo, because last night The Blaze published a piece totally debunking Beck's conspiracy theory:
Neither progressive billionaire George Soros — who has bankrolled numerous far-left initiatives and Democratic political campaigns — nor his company has spent money to support the campaign of John Kasich for president.
Still, numerous conservative news sites have pointed to campaign finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics, which lists the Soros Fund Management company as a prominent supporter of the of Kasich super PAC New Day for America, with $200,000 in donations. In some cases, the news accounts presented Soros as backing Kasich to cause mayhem in the Republican presidential primary — to either draw votes from front-runner Donald Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
However, the firm Soros Fund Management did not give money to the Kasich super PAC. Rather, a one-time top-ranking executive, Scott Bessent, made two separate $100,000 donations to New Day — one on Oct. 21 and second on Dec. 8, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Another close Soros associate, Stanley Druckenmiller, whom Forbes once referred to as “George Soros’s main man,” gave three separate contributions of $150,000 to the Kasich super PAC, for a total of $450,000. Druckenmiller heads the Duquesne Family Office hedge fund firm. Druckenmiller made his first donation to the Kasich super PAC on Aug. 10 and the other two in February.
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Bessent was the chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management. A Soros Fund Management spokesman who did not provide his name told TheBlaze, said, “Scott Bessent doesn’t even work here any more, which is neither here nor there.” The spokesman angrily asserted that the firm itself did not contribute to the Kasich PAC.
