Lawsuits ask: How much tax money goes to Soros projects?

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How much U.S. taxpayer money was used to support the political and social agenda of George Soros, the left-wing billionaire hedge-fund manager who, according to one critic, thinks he's a god?

That's the question raised by a series of lawsuits brought by Washington watchdog Judicial Watch against the State Department and USAID.

Judicial Watch is demanding information about government funds the Obama administration directed to Soros' Open Society Foundations in Romania and Colombia.

"It is time for Americans to be allowed to see State Department documentation regarding the public funding of Soros' Open Society Foundations," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The billionaire George Soros needs zero assistance from taxpayers to promote his far-left agenda abroad."

Judicial Watch now has four Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lawsuits related to the Obama administration's funding of Soros' operations. It wants information about Soros' activities in Macedonia and Albania, as well.

The former Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski called for a "de-Sorosization" of society, Judicial Watch noted.

The watchdog already discovered a year ago that the U.S. government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia in collusion with Soros.

Also last year, Judicial Watch wrote to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson about investigating the relations between USAID and the Soros Foundations and how U.S. tax dollars were being used by the State Department and the USAID to support left-of-center political groups who seek to impose left-leaning policies in countries such as Macedonia and Albania.

The most recent lawsuits regarding Romania seek records of contracts, grants or any disbursements of funds by the State Department to the Open Society Foundation-Romania or its personnel or subsidiaries.

The suits were filed because State and USAID refused to respond "substantively" to a FOIA request.

Judicial Watch also wants, "All assessments, evaluations, reports or similar records relating to the work of Open Society Foundation-Romania and/or its subsidiaries or affiliated organizations."

Likewise, regarding Soros' operations in Colombia, the lawsuits came after State failed to respond to a FOIA request.

Judicial Watch seeks records of contracts, grants and the like from the government to Open Society Foundation-Columbia or its personnel or subsidiaries. Also sought are communications by email, text and other digital communications.

"As in other parts of the world, a number of Soros-funded entities and projects in Romania are also funded by the United States government. The Romanian Center for Independent Journalism, which is supported by the Open Society Institute in New York, recently received $17,000 from the State Department," Judicial Watch pointed out.

"In February 2017, Laura Silber of Open Society Foundations reportedly condemned 'illiberal governments' in the Balkans, such as Macedonia, Albania and Romania, for working against the Soros NGOs. In Romania, in March 2017, the leader of the governing party reportedly charged that the Soros foundations 'that he has funded since 1990 have financed evil.'"

Regarding Colombia, Judicial Watch said: "Verdad Abierta, a web-based portal created by Teresa Ronderos, director of the Open Society Program on Independent Journalism, boasts on its website that it receives support from USAID. Abierta has helped rewrite Colombia's history, elevating terrorists to the same level as the legitimate police and military forces, and rebranding decades of massacres, kidnappings, child soldiering, and drug trafficking by a criminal syndicate as simply '50 years of armed conflict.'"

Other concerns:

1. Fundacion Ideas para la Paz, once led by peace negotiator Sergio Jaramillo, now a member of the oversight "junta," is funded by the Open Society Foundations and has received more than $200,000.

2. The left-wing news portal La Silla Vacia, another Open Society initiative, also boasts of being a USAID grantee. Its columnist, Rodrigo Uprimny, whose NGO DeJusticia also partners with USAID and Open Society, is considered one of the architects of the peace deal.

3. Former National Liberation Army terrorist Leon Valencia – an Open Society collaborator and grantee – has received at least $1 million in USAID funding through his NGOs Corporacion Nuevo Arco Iris and Paz y Reconciliacion, and left-wing news portal Las Dos Orillas, which he co-founded.

Judicial Watch said many millions of taxpayer dollars are involved.

Last year, investigative journalist Matthew Vadum, senior vice president of the think tank Capital Research Center, observed Soros thinks of himself as a god.

Vadum's book "Subversion Inc." shows how the political activist group ACORN was run by "foot soldiers in a long-running war on America's free political institutions."

"Somehow Soros began to think that he was a god because he had all this money that he earned from hedge funds – he made a billion dollars overnight in one transaction. He's on record saying he began thinking of himself as a god. Initially, this troubled him, but then eventually he got used to and became fine with the idea.

"But he views himself as a kind of deity, which is interesting in that he is an atheist," Vadum said at the time.

Vadum argues that Soros, like Saul Alinsky, the author of the leftist "Rules for Radicals" admired by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, uses religion to advance progressivism.

"Alinsky was also born a Jew. He didn't identify as Jewish, he was an avowed atheist. Yet, like Soros, a deracinated Jew, he thought that using religion to advance and promote the fundamental transformation of society was useful. He was right. Alinsky reached out to the Catholic Church, he had a good relationship with them and wormed his way into many congregations and partnered with the social justice left of the Catholic church," he said.

"Soros is more than happy to fund evangelical movements, as long as they advance what he supports, which is one world government, the abolition of borders, and if not the collapse of the United States, certainly the weakening of the United States," he charged.

Vadum explained Soros is using social engineering to destroy American sovereignty.

"Soros is a truly deranged, dangerous individual whose beliefs are antithetical to the core principles of America," Vadum said at the time. "It is amazing he has gotten away with doing so much damage to America's free institutions over the years."

He said the core of Soros' plan to destabilize the United States is "abolishing borders" and pushing so there are no distinctions between illegal aliens and American citizens.