Thursday, a progressive Manhattan grand jury guided by a thoroughly politicized district attorney’s office indicted President Trump (BREAKING: Donald Trump Officially Indicted). The long-term dynamic of one political party deciding that it was a good idea to criminally indict opposing politicians and candidates because they can — like, why would you ever leave power if you knew you and your family were going to prison? — gave way to a rather bizarre argument over who put District Attorney Alvin Bragg into office. My colleague Jeff Charles has the rundown on how this started; Did George Soros Back Alvin Bragg?

One of the first shots in the exchange was fired by NBC’s profoundly stupid Ben Collins. Collins is a know-nothing who, for a while, fancied himself as covering the “dystopia beat.” No one was quite sure what it was, but it looks like NBC management was pretty sure it only existed in Collins’s mind. So now he passively aggressively says in his Twitter profile, “utopia beat, @NBCNews. Everything’s peachy keen.”

Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ron DeSantis have all claimed Alvin Bragg is "Soros-backed" or aligned since the news of the indictment dropped.

In reality, Soros has “has never met or spoken to Alvin Bragg,” according to a CNBC story from last week.https://t.co/UoCI1R1B4o

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 31, 2023

Collins was unable to tell the difference between “Soros-backed” or aligned,” and “has never met or spoken to Alvin Bragg.” This is rather odd, trending in the direction of gaslighting dishonesty, as most of the nation backs or is aligned with political candidates they have never met or spoken to. Sister Toldjah has more on Ben Collins denying what was never claimed, ‘Disinfo Reporter’ Embarrassingly Trips Over Himself in Rush to De-Link Alvin Bragg From George Soros.

No controversy like this is complete without one or more media fact-checkers getting in on the act. As surely as night follows day, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler.

New #FactChecker -> The incendiary claim that George Soros ‘funds’ Alvin Bragg https://t.co/wQr4klYmkU

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) April 1, 2023

These are the statements that Kessler chose to “fact check.”

“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was handpicked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in a statement on his indictment, March 30

“I knew the price I’d have to pay for running a campaign that promised to take on the Deep State, the Open Borders Lobby, and the Soros Money Machine.”

— Trump, in a fundraising appeal, March 31

He concludes:

But the intense focus on Soros is misplaced. Soros never directly funded Bragg, but instead contributed to a group that supported Bragg and other liberal candidates seeking to be prosecutors.

And goes on to say the claims are “mostly false.”

He also recycles the tired old canard that any objection to Soros’ hostility to America’s federalist system and culture and his corruption of our electoral processes results from “anti-Semitism.” It’s funny how it was never anti-Semitism when the Democrats made a bogeyman of casino magnate and GOP moneyman Sheldon Adelson.

Moreover, the repeated mention of Soros plays into antisemitic conspiracy theories that Soros, a Hungarian American Holocaust survivor, is a wealthy puppet-master who works behind the scenes to manipulate elections and further his goals. The Anti-Defamation League found in 2018 that Soros figures in a significant number of antisemitic tweets.

Soros is not a “Holocaust survivor.” He is a “Holocaust evader” who lived in the household of a collaborator with Hungary’s fascist government. You do what you do to survive, but don’t make a mockery of the mantle of a “Holocaust survivor” when he isn’t.

.@georgesoros, now a principle financial backer of violent #Antifa thugs, admits his collaboration with Hitler and says he has no regrets: pic.twitter.com/P1Xl1vo87T

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 2, 2017

Soros’s Open Society Foundation is an evil organization that has existed outside of a totalitarian regime. There is no doubt that Soros works to meddle in US elections by buying the outcomes via such cutouts as the “Secretary of State Project” to elect the officials who manage elections at the state level and dumping $40 million into little-noticed district attorney races.

Kessler is one of the most calculatedly dishonest “journalists” grifting off the “fact checker” scam. Back during those days when people were trying to get us excited about voting for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama, Kessler awarded the RNC a “True but False” rating. He admitted their statement was correct but didn’t like what that meant.

The Pinocchio Test
We cannot fault the RNC’s math, as the numbers add up. But at this point this figure doesn’t mean very much. It may simply a function of a coincidence of timing — a brief blip that could have little to do with “Obama’s job market.”

If trends hold up over the next few months, then the RNC might have a better case. But at this point we will give this statistic our rarely used label:

TRUE BUT FALSE

He also “fact checked” some bogus campaign ads that Donald Trump’s father purportedly used and then deleted the tweet rather than admit he’d been punked (HAHAHAHA. Washington Post’s Fact Checker Punked By Fake Campaign Ads).

What happened next was glorious.

George Soros: I'm backing and supporting reform prosecutors

Glenn Kessler: https://t.co/VLfgJqL8ql

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 1, 2023

Kessler also claims that calling someone Soros-backed — when they are Soros-backed– is anti-Semitic. It's very convenient that no one is allowed to be critical of the top individual political donor in the nation. https://t.co/vWJFe0T5Cm

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) April 1, 2023

Even better than the commentary was the reminder that the Washington Post had reported the same claim that Kessler was criticizing.

https://t.co/xtvuSAk0M0 pic.twitter.com/LlwpCfqGBy

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) April 1, 2023

Then the Twitter community got involved and added a “Community Note” on Kessler’s fact check:

Kessler got all snotty about his bullsh** fact check being fact-checked

Twitter trolls who posted a "community note" to this tweet apparently have not read the actual fact check. Click the link and you will find that Color of Change did not spend $1 million in independent expenditures on Bragg, as people often claim. https://t.co/fCJVrCrvyW

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) April 1, 2023

And then his objection to the fact check was fact-checked.

Even Elon Musk weighed in.

Only thing on fire are Kessler’s pants

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2023

Bottom-line. It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference if Soros spoke to Bragg, met with him, or had a rendezvous with him in a Times Square restroom. Soros backed Bragg individually and collectively with 74 other pro-crime district attorney candidates. The money “Color of Change” poured into Bragg’s campaign was replenished from Soros’s non-profits. Watching a deeply dishonest and deceptive Kessler getting dragged was worth the pain of reading the stupid crap he wrote.