George Soros’ dark money group planned a seven-figure cash infusion for a Planned Parenthood fund that spent millions lobbying to preserve its taxpayer subsidies after videos showed the abortion provider negotiating the sale of fetal body parts, internal documents reveal.
Soros’ Open Society Policy Center, his vast political network’s 501(c)(4) “social welfare” arm, sought a $1.5 million boost for a Planned Parenthood legal, lobbying, and rapid response operation it called the Fight Back Campaign.
The money would enable the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the group’s lobbying arm, “to mobilize grassroots and grasstops supporters and lobby Congress to counter attempts to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal and state levels,” an internal OSPC document said in language designed to brief its board on the grant.
It is not clear whether the funds were ever actually disbursed. OSPC is required to report its grants annually, but its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service cover grants only through 2014.
Planned Parenthood and the OSPC did not respond to questions about the Fight Back Campaign grant proposal.
The document outlining it was one of thousands of hacked files from Soros’ political and policy network released on the website DC Leaks. Metadata indicates it was written by Victoria Choong, an Open Society budget analyst until 2015.
The grant summary and other documents released by the hackers reveal the extent not only of Soros’ work to preserve subsidies for Planned Parenthood, but also how the Hungarian-born billionaire’s network of advocacy groups has honed its ability to address unforeseen and time-sensitive policy fights with sudden infusions of cash designed to sway specific policy decisions.
According to OSPC’s summary of its Planned Parenthood grant, the Fight Back Campaign’s budget was projected to reach as much as $8 million. “Countering this offensive requires an enormous amount of resources and staff time, which is the intent of the opposition,” OPSC wrote. – READ MORE
