President Donald Trump is considering launching a federal racketeering investigation into George Soros and members of his family, suggesting on Friday that they may be responsible for funding protests that he claims amount to “real agitation,” not free expression.
The president said in an interview on Fox News that he believes there may be grounds for invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against Soros and affiliated networks following an incident earlier this week in which protesters came within feet of Trump at a Washington, D.C., restaurant.
“Protesters get paid for their profession from Soros and other people,” Trump said on Fox and Friends. “And we’re going to look into Soros, because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people. Because this is more than, like, protests. This is real agitation.”
Trump did not elaborate on which family members could be targeted or specify the legal framework under which a racketeering case might be pursued. But he previously said Soros “and his wonderful Radical Left son” should be prosecuted in an apparent reference to Alex Soros, who chairs the board of directors of the Open Society Foundations, a global nonprofit group funded by the Soros family.
.@POTUS: “We’re going to look into Soros because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people because this is more than protests. This is real agitation; this is riots on the street — and we’re going to look into that.” pic.twitter.com/zwUr03G5DA
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 12, 2025
The remark came as the president reiterated his intent to prosecute individuals and organizations he blames for political violence in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
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“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said in a video message earlier this week, before the suspect in the shooting, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody late Thursday night.
Friday’s statement follows Trump’s Aug. 27 social media post in which the president called on the Justice Department to charge George and Alex Soros under federal RICO laws “because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more.”
Violence at Soros-funded protests
Open Society Foundations has denounced the president’s accusations as “outrageous and false,” asserting that it does not “fund violent protests.” While violence is rare, but not unheard of, at protests organized by Soros-funded groups, general unlawful activity is far more common.
Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the primary groups responsible for organizing pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the country, counts on the Soros family’s philanthropic empire to provide it with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Some of the demonstrations Jewish Voice for Peace has helped organize turned violent, such as its November 2023 protest outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters, where activists attacked and injured six Capitol Police officers, one of whom was pepper-sprayed.
Even the organization’s non-violent protests frequently precipitate violations of the law.
Hundreds of the organization’s members, for instance, were arrested after occupying a congressional office building in July 2024. Jewish Voice for Peace was also a major player in the university encampment movement, where students, sometimes in violation of legal orders, occupied public spaces on college campuses. Some of these encampments turned violent, leading to skirmishes between protesters and police during clearing operations. Jewish Voice for Peace was a key player in the events at Columbia University, which culminated in over 50 students barricading themselves inside a university building before being arrested by the New York Police Department.
Indivisible, a left-wing organizing operation most notable for its “No Kings” protests, has also seen dozens of people arrested at its events.
On top of funding protest groups that employ legally dubious tactics, Open Society Foundations has also provided financial support to an Israeli-designated terrorist organization and a U.S.-based nonprofit group that has long served as the U.S. parent organization for an organization the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated as “an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization.”
What would a RICO case require?
The RICO Act was designed to prosecute organized criminal enterprises, requiring evidence of a pattern of racketeering activity, often involving fraud, violence, or obstruction. Legal experts remain divided on whether George Soros’s alleged protest funding would meet that threshold, but some expressed openness to the idea that the president has broad latitude to pursue a case on either a civil or a criminal basis.
Former federal prosecutor Michael Benza said the government’s power to “start an investigation is relatively limitless,” but moving from a hunch to coercive steps such as grand jury subpoenas or search warrants requires concrete facts, not political statements.
“A government hunch is not enough,” Benza said, adding that a magistrate must find probable cause based on sworn facts before authorizing a warrant. He also noted that if investigators designate the Soros network itself as a criminal target, Fifth Amendment issues can restrict some subpoena options, complicating the evidence‑gathering process.
“Proof is always the problem,” Benza said. “The president has made lots of comments about what he thinks of the Soros and Soros foundations, none of which has ever been implicated in any sort of criminal activity. But that doesn’t stop him from making these types of announcements.”
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner, “If there is something worth investigating and warrants it, maybe it should be explored.”
“[Soros] comes as close to being more of a James Bond villain as anyone on the Left,” Dershowitz added.
However, Dershowitz noted that he has often criticized RICO cases, especially the case Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought against Trump in Georgia ahead of the 2024 election.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and former student of Dershowitz at Harvard Law School, said the legal standard remains high.
“Even if Attorney General Pam Bondi or some DOJ prosecutor does Trump’s bidding, it would have no merit,” Rahmani told Newsweek last month. “It would be immediately tossed out by any judge.”
Investigators could also explore FARA violations
Some Soros critics say the president’s legal team may have a more viable path by pursuing potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act rather than racketeering.
Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told the Washington Examiner he thinks there is stronger public evidence linking Alex Soros to alleged foreign lobbying activities that could potentially trigger FARA violations, particularly in connection with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s 2021 sanctions policy in Albania.
“It seems pretty clear Alex might have intervened to try and get the opposition leader in Albania sanctioned,” Thayer said, referencing the U.S. sanctions against Sali Berisha during the Biden administration. “That would be lobbying on behalf of a foreign government — or at minimum, foreign citizens — to influence U.S. policy. That’s textbook FARA.”
Thayer pointed to the close relationship between Alex Soros and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, noting that Rama was a guest at Soros’s wedding in June. The sanctions decision by Blinken, which proved politically beneficial for Rama during an election cycle, raised red flags in Thayer’s view, saying that if it were proven that he was lobbying without proper disclosure, that could have violated federal law.
“There’s much more likely to be something there,” Thayer said.
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According to legal experts, the DOJ would have to determine whether any Soros-linked actors knowingly lobbied on behalf of foreign clients without properly registering. Little evidence of that has surfaced publicly, however.
Any investigation into alleged FARA violations would likely involve subpoenas, a grand jury, and internal communications to evaluate whether U.S. policy was swayed as part of a coordinated influence effort.