Thursday, November 14, 2019

Rep. Adam Schiff’s Congressional Career Aided by Soros-Financed Groups


Rep. Adam Schiff’s Congressional Career Aided by Soros-Financed Groups
By Aaron Klein10 Apr 2017
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was previously financially aided by the George Soros-financed MoveOn.org to win his Congressional seat.

Schiff was also awarded the Toll Fellowship, which is sponsored by the Council of State Governments, a nonprofit that monitors federal government activities and is heavily financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

The Open Society and Soros-funded groups have additionally supported a number of Schiff’s legislative efforts.

Schiff has been helping to lead the Democrats’ unsubstantiated charges of alleged collusion between President Donald Trump and Moscow.

Last month, Schiff delivered the opening statements at a Congressional hearing where he laid out the case for alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.  This reporter previously documented serious problems with Schiff’s charges, which include wild conspiracy theories and heavy reliance on a questionable source.

In largely forgotten history, Schiff’s 2000 Congressional campaign against Republican incumbent Jim Rogan was openly aided by MoveOn.org.

On January 1, 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported on the radical group’s fundraising efforts for Schiff.  The Congressional seat was particularly important since Rogan had gained fame after he was selected to be one of thirteen House Managers in the 1998 impeachment case of Bill Clinton. Rogan was supportive of Clinton’s impeachment and became a hero in the Republican Party.

The Journal reported:

If MoveOn were to achieve its ambitious goals, it just might have a big impact on this year’s struggle to control Congress, especially the House. Republicans hold only a slim five-vote majority there, and the outcome will “likely be determined in no more than three dozen congressional districts,” says Thomas Mann, director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

And of course, most congressional impeachment proponents were Republicans. One of the most prominent among them, House impeachment manager James Rogan of California, faces a challenge this year from Democratic State Senator Adam Schiff, for whom MoveOn to date has raised $106,000, Mr. Boyd says.

CNN reported on the MoveOn.org money for Schiff’s 2000 campaign: “By 2000, MoveOn.org was raising $2 million for Democratic candidates, including more than $100,000 to help California’s Adam Schiff beat Congressman James Rogan, one of the House managers during Clinton’s impeachment trial.”

MoveOn.org also sponsored a January 2010 rally in favor of health care reform outside Schiff’s office in Pasadena, California.
Schiff’s 2000 campaign bio, meanwhile, relates that he was “awarded the prestigious Toll Fellowship, sponsored by The Council of State Governments.”

The bio continues:

Nominated and endorsed by his peers in the Legislature, Schiff was selected from many outstanding applicants across the nation by a committee of state elected and appointed officials as one of the most promising new leaders of state government. In 1998, the California League of High Schools named Schiff Legislator of the Year.

Schiff later said that the Toll Fellowship “helped me identify my own leadership strengths, work more effectively with my colleagues and strengthen my relationship with the media.”

The Council of State Governments, which sponsors the Toll Fellowship, is heavily financed by Soros.   The Open Society provided the group with $320,000 in 2003; $1 million in 2004; and another $100,000 that year alone.

In 2009, Schiff introduced the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act. The bill was described by the Justice Center at the Soros-funded Council of State Governments – which gave Schiff the Toll Fellowship award – as providing “grants to state and local governments to design and advance data-driven, consensus-based strategies to reduce corrections spending and increase public safety.”

A press release from the Council of State Governments said that Schiff’s bill “builds on the justice reinvestment work done by the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center in Texas, Kansas, Vermont, Rhode Island and seven other states.”

The Justice Center’s justice reinvestment initiative was itself directly supported by Soros’s Open Society, the press release documents.

In 2014, the Open Society released a statement publicly supporting legislation by Schiff “requiring the president to provide an annual public report on the total number of persons killed or injured in drone strikes.”  The Open Society further signed a joint statement with other leftwing groups, including organizations financed by Soros, supporting Schiff’s Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act.

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