Fox host rebukes Gingrich on-air: Soros campaign funding of left-wing DAs is taboo topic

Hedge fund billionaire George Soros has spent millions funding Democratic prosecutors in municipalities lately hit by vandalism and violence associated with anti-police protests — a fact deemed taboo Wednesday on an unlikely platform. 

In a viral clip stirring political passions around the Internet on Wednesday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich argued during a panel on Fox News' "Outnumbered" that "the number one problem in almost all the cities [hit by violent protests] is George Soros-elected, left-wing, anti-police pro-criminal district attorneys who refuse to keep people locked up."

Melissa Francis, the co-host of the midday show, intervened to caution the conservative icon, "I'm not sure we need to bring George Soros into this."

When Gingrich insisted that Soros "paid for" the prosecutors, Fox News contributor and former Obama State Department spokesperson Marie Harf stated bluntly, "No he didn't" and, echoing Francis, added, "George Soros doesn't need to be part of this conversation."

"OK ... so it's verboten," replied Gingrich after a pause.

After another, extended, dead-air silence, show host Harris Faulkner tersely concluded the segment.

Whether or not one agrees with Gingrich's assertion that the district attorneys in question are  "anti-police" and "pro-criminal," his assertion that Soros has funded the campaigns of prosecutors in cities recently hit by violent protest and riots is abundantly documented. 

Among the most well-known prosecutors funded by Soros is Cook County, Ill. State's Attorney Kim Foxx. Soros starting in February transferred $2 million from his Democracy PAC to the Illinois Justice and Public Safety PAC, which backed Foxx. 

Foxx received criticism in June when she announced that her office would not prosecute "individuals charged with minor offenses related to peaceful protests." Among the charges Foxx said she would not prosecute were disorderly conduct and criminal trespass on public land; she also directed her office, in the absence of video footage, to presume against prosecuting charges such as assault, battery and "mob action."

Soros in August also personally poured well over $100,000 into a PAC supporting St. Louis prosecutor Kimberly Gardner. St. Louis has been among the cities hardest hit by the recent unrest; four police officers were shot there in June amid riots and destruction. 

Gardner was accused earlier in the summer of failing to prosecute rioters and looters arrested in St. Louis. Her office did charge local St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey with a felony after they pointed firearms at allegedly confrontational protesters. 

Gardner's chief warrant officer, Chris Hinckley, ordered crime lab experts to disassemble and reassemble Patricia McCloskey's inoperable handgun, according to documents obtained by KSDK in St. Louis. The tampering made the gun "readily capable of lethal use," a standard that must be met under state law in proving the crime with which the McCloskey were charged, "unlawful use of a weapon."

Soros also dumped nearly $1.7 million into the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC in 2017; that PAC spent heavily on the eventually successful campaign of District Attorney Larry Krasner. That city over the summer saw crowds of rioters blowing up ATMs and looting stores. 

Krasner over the summer pledged to prosecute at least some looters in Philadelphia "in a way that is constructive," suggesting that he might employ a left-wing prosecutorial tactic known as "restorative justice."

Addressing the exchange on Fox News on Thursday, Faulkner said it was "not ideal" that she had "sat silently while all of that played out."

"Our guest, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is beloved and needed to be allowed to speak with the openness and respect that this show is all about, was interrupted," she said. 

"[W]e must also give each other the space to express ourselves," she continued, adding: "We don't censor on this show."