Grassroots outrage? Soros-funded activists behind anti-Kavanaugh campaign

Moving videos of women confronting senators over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination have been framed as grassroots activism, but they were actually made by an organization that receives massive funding from George Soros.

A number of videos have surfaced in recent days showing activists giving Republican senators an earful about their support for Kavanaugh's nomination. The most piercing of these interactions came last week, when Republican Senator Jeff Flake was confronted at the US Capitol by two women who said they were survivors of sexual assault.

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The two women berated Flake for voicing support for the nominee, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault and misconduct. Flake appeared visibly unsettled in the video, and he acknowledged that the interaction may have influenced his decision to press for an FBI probe into the allegations.

The ambush, it seems, paid off – but there's more to the story. One of the women who confronted Flake, Ana Maria Archila, is the co-executive director of a non-profit activist group called Center for Popular Democracy (CPD). The organization, as it turns out, receives generous funding from liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

Records show that Soros is one of the three largest donors to CPD, with his organization giving $130,000 in 2014 and $1,164,500 in 2015. Soros gave an additional $1.5 million to the group in 2016 and 2017.

Soros also donated $1.2 million to sister organization Center for Popular Democracy Action, which organized protests against Kavanaugh's nomination hearings in early September, resulting in some 200 arrests.

In a separate incident, Tracey Corder, who is CPD's justice campaign director, confronted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Corder also pounced on another Republican senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee.

And in yet another video appearing to show 'grassroots' anti-Kavanaugh activism, Republican Senator David Perdue was confronted by three women, including CPD co-executive director Jennifer Epps-Addison.

A spokesman for Open Society Foundations said that the organization has "long supported the work of the Center for Popular Democracy," but emphasized that Archila was acting "entirely independent of OSF's support."

The White House has claimed that a just-concluded FBI probe revealed no evidence to support the allegations levelled at Kavanaugh, although Democrats have sharply criticized the investigation, which wrapped up two days before the Friday deadline, and did not include interviews with Kavanaugh or his most high profile accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. Kavanaugh, however, has already undergone several FBI background checks.

McConnell has called for a Friday vote on Kavanaugh's nomination. Undeterred, anti-Kavanaugh activists continue to press undecided senators to vote 'no'. But their tactics, McConnell claims, won't work.

"I want to make it clear to these people who are chasing my members around the hall here, or harassing them at the airports, or going to their homes," McConnell said Wednesday.

"We will not be intimidated by these people. There is no chance in the world that they're going to scare us out of doing our duty."

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