AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Shirley
Since 2022, at least 15 far-left district attorneys backed by liberal megadonor George Soros have resigned, retired, been recalled, or lost re-election, according to a recent report from the watchdog group “Virginians for Safe Communities.” With fewer Soros prosecutors taking office in that time, it seems conservatives may be turning the tide against the radical criminal justice “reform” movement.
On January 8, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm became the latest Soros DA to announce that he would not seek re-election this year. Like other Marxist prosecutors, Chisholm pursued an agenda of ending cash bail, releasing as many prisoners as possible, and refusing to prosecute “low-level” offenses like drug use and theft.
Chisholm’s policies received national attention in 2021 after it was revealed that 39-year-old Darrell Brooks, the man who intentionally drove his car into a Christmas parade in Wisconsin killing five innocent civilians and injuring at least 48 more, was out on $1,000 cash bail after physically assaulting the mother of his child and attempting to run her over with his vehicle at a Milwaukee gas station. The ridiculously low bond was even more shocking considering that Brooks was also guilty of jumping another bond at the time of his arrest.
Following this incident, many of Chisholm’s critics pointed to an interview from 2007 in which Chisholm said it was “guaranteed” there would “be an individual I divert, or I put into [a] treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody.”
“It’s guaranteed to happen,” Chisholm said at the time. “It does not invalidate the overall approach.”
Chisholm’s decision to not seek re-election is particularly significant considering that he was in many ways the blueprint for other far-left Soros prosecutors throughout the country, often acting as the movement’s top cheerleader online and in the media.
As the Washington Free Beacon noted back in 2021, Chisholm has “taken credit” for the rise of other radical DAs like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin, whom Chisholm viewed as a sort of protégé. At a conference that year, Boudin and Chisholm spoke together about the supposedly bright future of the far-left prosecutor movement.
Ironically, however, it was Boudin’s recall in June 2022 that helped spark a nationwide backlash against Soros prosecutors. Despite being elected as a Democrat in one of the most liberal cities in America, voters overwhelmingly chose to recall Boudin after San Francisco devolved into one of the most dangerous cities in America.
A month later, Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby, another far-left prosecutor who received millions from Soros, was defeated in the Democrat primary by a challenger promising to get tougher on crime. Mosby, who oversaw a dramatic spike in homicides and repeat violent offenders yet refused to stop letting violent criminals out on bail, was also later indicted on federal perjury charges.
Another major blow to the Soros prosecutor movement came in May of last year when St. Louis DA Kim Gardner resigned amid a series of lawsuits to remove her from office. Under Gardner’s watch, St. Louis became the most dangerous city in America – even as she refused to prosecute more than 35 percent of the cases under her jurisdiction.
Last November, Soros-backed Loudoun County, Virginia, DA Buta Biberaj lost re-election to Republican Bob Anderson in a county where Biden won more than 61 percent of the vote in 2020. Biberaj infamously allowed a trans-identifying male who raped a girl in a high school bathroom to walk free and transfer to another Loudoun County high school, after which he assaulted a second girl.
When Scott Smith, the first victim’s father, demanded justice for his daughter at a school board meeting and was arrested, Biberaj, discarding her commitment to seek lenient punishments, attempted to throw Smith in prison. Biberaj was later removed from the case by a federal judge citing concerns about impartiality.
Throughout the country, it seems millions of Americans, even in deep blue areas, have had enough of Soros’s vision of criminal justice “reform.”
Nonetheless, the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund counts more than 70 Soros prosecutors who are still in office, including in the nation’s largest cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. These prosecutors wield enormous influence – look no further than Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Donald Trump for evidence of this. Bragg has accepted more than $500,000 from Soros-linked groups and is now leading an effort to potentially disqualify Trump from running for president.
Americans will have their next opportunity to deliver a further rebuke of the radical criminal justice “reform” movement in primary and general elections this year. With cities continuing to succumb to chaos and lawlessness, the worst backlash for Soros prosecutors may be yet to come.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
