When the Justice Department urged federal prosecutors last month to investigate the billionaire George Soros, it cited a report by a conservative watchdog group that accused the liberal megadonor of financing groups “tied to terrorism or extremist violence.”
But the report by Washington-based Capital Research Center does not show evidence that Mr. Soros’s network knowingly paid for its grantees to break the law, which legal experts said would be necessary to build a criminal case.
In fact, the report does not offer proof that groups that received money from the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations used those donations to commit acts of violence or terrorism.
Instead, it focuses largely on what the Soros network’s grantees said, not what they did. The report, which was published Sept. 17, largely catalogs statements in which Soros grantees offered support for Palestinians in the wake of violent attacks against Israel, suggested tactics for civil disobedience and urged people to turn out for a protest aimed at blocking an Israeli ship from arriving at a port in Oakland, Calif.
“I see the report as a political document, saying ‘Here’s why the Soros foundation is disreputable. It gives money to bad people,’” said Stephen Gillers, an emeritus professor of law at New York University. “From a legal point of view, that’s not enough by a long shot.”
Scott Walter, the president of Capital Research Center, agreed that his group had not found evidence that the Soros network had committed a crime.
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