Judging Freedom - George Soros Reform Prosecutors

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Why I Support Reform Prosecutors Justice or safety? It’s a false choice. They reinforce each other. By George Soros https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-su... #crime #PoliceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, July, excuse me, Monday, August 1st, 2022. It's about 3.50 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. And this morning's Wall Street Journal was an op-ed by George Soros. Mr. Soros is, of course, the Hungarian billionaire. He came over here without any money in his pocket, so to speak, and became a fabulously successful businessman. He's a hard left. Well, when I was young, it was like all the rich guys, all the rich people were conservative Republicans. Now they can be lefties as well. George Soros is like AOC.

I mean, he is really on the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. And in his later years, he's gotten involved in politics, and he's decided to get involved in the politics of electing prosecutors. Now, in the federal system, prosecutors are appointed by the president, confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In some state systems, as was the case where I sat as a judge in New Jersey, prosecutors are appointed, sometimes called district attorneys in New Jersey prosecutors, the federal system, U.S. attorneys. In New Jersey, the prosecutors are appointed by the governor, confirmed by the state senate for five years. You could be reappointed for as many times as whoever's the governor at the time wants you. There's no limit to the number of terms that you can serve. In the areas where Mr. Soros has gotten involved, noticeably or notably Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, he has supported where prosecutors who basically said, you know, if you're poor and if

you're hungry and if you commit a crime to address your hunger, we're not going to prosecute you. Now, this means that it was sort of a green light for these smash and grabs where people will walk into a supermarket or a drugstore chain and just fill a bag with items from the shelves. Or the smash part of the smash and grab, they'll take a brick and put it through a plate glass window and reach in over the broken glass and steal something to eat or to sell or to use in some other way. George Soros has basically said that the prosecutors did the right thing by announcing that they're going to concentrate on more important crimes rather than on quality of life crimes, especially when the quality of life crimes are committed by people who are below the poverty level. This is absolute nonsense. This has

resulted in a bail law in New York where if there only if there's violence, you get bail and violence is described as drawing blood or breaking a bone or impairing an organ. You can punch a cop in the nose and if you don't draw blood, you don't break the nose, and you're arrested, you're going to be out on the street in five minutes. It's an exaggeration. In just a couple of hours. The thugs in New York have a phrase for it. And they say this to taunt the cops. And the phrase is, easy pass.

If you live in the New York, New Jersey area, that's the name of the system that you put on your car. It allows you to go through the toll lanes without toll booths, without stopping. It zaps your credit card. So they taunt the cops and say, easy pass, easy pass, easy pass, which is a shorthand way of saying to the cops, arrest me all you want. I'll be out on the street in a couple of hours. We showed you. Judging Freedom showed you. Or we tried to show you. One of the platforms banned us. A 16-year-old fighting with a cop.

And these guys were really punching each other. And it was over a fair beating. The kid had jumped a turnstile to get on the subway. The cops caught him and were going to arrest him for it, and they had this fight. He eventually got arrested. The charges were upgraded because he beat the daylights out of the cop, and then other cops came and he was subdued. And he used this phrase, easy pass, easy pass, easy pass, and he was out in two hours. And of course, we later learned that this fellow had been arrested numerous times before, including for possession of an illegal handgun and for robbery. times, like breaking a window and stealing what's on the other side, or a mob of these people rushing into a drugstore and all of them at once emptying the shelves and leaving, the idea that

these people would not be prosecuted and that the government would announce that it's not going to prosecute them is absolutely wrong. Why do they do this? Because they think they can get away with it. Why do they think they can get away with it? Because of the prosecutors that George Soros has bankrolled. I'm not suggesting it's illegal. He's given money to their political campaigns because they are so far to the left that they don't want to enforce basic criminal laws against people because they're poor. That's wrong. Nobody should be exempt from the reach of the laws, and the laws should be enforced against everybody, whether you're the President of the United States or these people that are smashing and grabbing. Soros does make one interesting point, that safety and justice are not mutually exclusive. I agree with him. When the justice

system works, there will be safety. And when people feel safe, the justice system will work. But when prosecutors look the other way because of the social status of the criminal, the system will not work and we will all suffer and easy pass will run the day. Judge Lampolitano for judging freedom.