Why George Soros
Could Have Major Clout in Either a Trump or Clinton Presidency
Feb. 29, 2016 1:14pm Fred Lucas
Liberal billionaire George Soros could have significant
sway in the White House if either of the two major party front-runners,
Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton, is the next commander in
chief.
The philanthropist and investor donated $8
million to the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action in
January. Soros, like Trump, has also been a contributor to the Clinton
Foundation. Meanwhile, Soros has had close business associations with Trump
that included a $160
million loan for a Trump development.
Matthew Vadum, the senior vice president of the nonprofit
watchdog group Capital Research Center, has written and researched extensively
on the Soros financial networks.
“If Hillary wins, there is no question she will be
Soros’s puppet,” Vadum told TheBlaze. “They go way, way back and they’re ideological
soulmates. If Trump wins, it’s not so clear what his working relationship with
Soros will be. Trump has been cozy with Soros in the world of high finance, but
that was before the candidate’s recent conversion to conservatism.”
In 2004, the year that Soros spent $20 million out of
pocket to try to defeat President George W. Bush’s re-election effort, he also
made the $160 million loan to Trump to build Trump Tower Chicago. The $160
million Soros investment came in the form of a so-called mezzanine loan,
described by the Chicago
Tribune as a second mortgage that charges a higher interest rate
than the original construction loan.
The website, Conservative Review, noted the loan, while
also pointing out that the two billionaires spent Christmas Eve 2009 together,
among other celebrities, according to the New York Post,
Trump and Soros were also co-defendents in a lawsuit. In
2008, the developer Leslie Dick Worldwide filed a RICO
lawsuit against 17 parties, including Trump and Soros over the 2003
sale of a General Motors building in Manhattan. The suit was fled in U.S.
District Court in Manhattan.
Soros’ ties with Clinton are even deeper.
Before his $8 million donation this year, Soros helped
raise $24
million for the pro-Clinton super PAC last year from other donors.
Soros’s Open
Society Institute gave between $1 million and $5 million to the
Clinton Foundation. Separately, the Soros
Foundation contributed between $500,000 and $1 million to the
Clinton Foundation.
The Washington
Post reported that while she served as secretary of state, Hillary
Clinton acted when Soros demanded “urgent attention from the highest levels of
the U.S. government” to Albania.
Neither the Clinton nor Trump campaign responded to
TheBlaze for comment on this story. The Open Society Institute also did not
immediately respond for comment.
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