The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW - Soros' Rogue Prosecutors

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

What Soros' prosecutors have done to destroy cities, their agenda, and how you can spot them. Author Zach Smith, "Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities"Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

Joining us now is Zach Smith. He is a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He served as an assistant United States attorney and has worked on a variety of criminal and civil matters in public service and private practice. by another legal fellow, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Cully Stimpson, who has co-authored a book with Zach Smith. And Cully, if he joins us, I'll go ahead and introduce him now. Hopefully he'll be on. He served as a local state, federal, and military prosecutor, also as a defense attorney, and as a military trial judge.

He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs in the George W. Bush administration. And so they've got a lot of background. And they have just put out a book. It was released June 27th. The book is entitled Rogue Prosecutors. How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Dest are destroying America's communities. And we know this is happening. And I've talked about this a lot,

but I wanted to get the guys who've done a lot of research on this so much. So they've written a book about it because a lot is being done with George Soros. So thank you for joining us, Zach. Great to have you on. Of course. Thank you for having me on today.

Well, glad to have you here. Let's talk about this because I've been talking about this since 2017. In 2017, we had outgoing President Obama and his attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, and they were saying, we now need to focus the Democrat Party on these local district attorney races and on state attorney general races. And they did just that. And apparently they got a lot of money from Soros.

I know in some of these particular cases, there's been millions of dollars for a local district attorney race. There was one in Texas, I believe it was San Antonio. And the guy was able to defeat the Soros funded opponent by pointing out that the money came from Soros and that he was being funded by Soros-funded opponent by pointing out that the money came from Soros and that he was being funded by Soros. So he was able to beat that off, but they've been very successful in getting their district attorneys into office because there's a tremendous amount of money put into a local race. What can you tell us about the Soros connections? Because we always see the mainstream media poo-pooing, oh, it's not Soros, it's just a conspiracy theory.

What do we know about how he has jumped into this? Well, I think it's important to put these local elected district attorney races in context. There are over 2,300 local elected district attorneys around the country, and most law enforcement activities, most prosecutions, take place by these local elected DAs. You know, we hear a lot about U.S. Attorney's Offices, the Federal Department of Justice, and it plays an important role in our criminal justice system, an outsized role in many ways. But most crimes are prosecuted by these local elected DAs. And historically, these have often been low profile, low dollar political contests.

Often they're uncontested. And so when you have, you know, $50,000, $60,000 being put into one of these races, that's a huge sum of prosecutors coming into office who were pledging not to prosecute certain crimes, not to seek bail for defendants, to seek lower criminal penalties, even for repeat violent offenders. And so we said, what in the world is going on here? And so the more we started to look at it, the more we started to realize they had bought into this leftist ideology of not prosecuting crimes, of not holding people accountable for their actions. And the consequences are really speaking for themselves, unfortunately. And as you mentioned, George Soros and several other left-leaning billionaires,

they poured in millions upon millions of dollars into this effort. And we know this has happened because some of the money we can trace some we can't because of the way it's been funneled but we know that george soros and related entities to him have given 40 million dollars directly to fund these local elected da's and then in terms of other infrastructure other funding funding, in terms of nonprofits and foundations and all that sort of thing, some estimates put that number north of $1 billion that he's put into this effort. Wow. And, of course, he's passing the torch to his son, I think it's Alex,

who says, I'm far more political than my dad is. And he was the one who had another older son who was more interested in making the business profitable, but, uh, he, he passes stuff over to his younger, more politicized son.

So we're going to see a lot more of this type of thing and outsized influence on, uh, our, our system here. What do you think is their ultimate goal? I mean, what is it that these guys are trying to do?

It certainly is created chaos, uh, by turning criminals back out on the street. I mean, is that what they're obviously focused on that? But is there something else that you see as a motivation behind this? Well, if you get a copy of our book, Rogue Prosecutors, How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities, we dive into all of this. We have an entire chapter on the background of the movement, the ideological underpinnings

of it. And one of the things that, you know, frankly shocked Cully and I as we were researching and writing this book is if you start looking at some of the academic writings, some of the stuff that doesn't make the front page news, the proponents of this movement are very open about their goals. And they'll tell you their goal is to quote, fundamentally re-engineer and reimagine our criminal justice system. And what they mean by that is they want to tear it down and build it back as something completely different. And the reason they want to do this is unfortunately, many on the left have

bought into two myths about our criminal justice system. They've bought into the myth that our criminal justice system is systemically racist, which it's not. And they've also bought into the myth that we have a mass incarceration problem in our country, which we don't. If you look at who is actually incarcerated in state and federal prisons, by and large, it's repeat violent offenders. And so whenever you talk about either incarcerating fewer people or letting people that are currently incarcerated out of prison early, I think it's important to understand that that necessarily means either not locking up or releasing back into our communities repeat violent offenders. And again, in the cities where this has happened, the consequences speak for themselves in terms of increased crime rates, particularly in terms of increased violent crime rates like homicides and shootings.

And when I think of this, I think, first of all, of California. And, you know, we have, was it Eric Gascon, I think it is, the LA District Attorney? George Gascon. George Gascon, yeah. And he was in San Francisco and then went to LA. And then the person who took his place was another one of these guys, Chesa Boudin, whose parents had, uh, you know, been in jail for terrorist acts with the weather underground. Uh, he was raised by, um, uh, Bernadine Dorn and, um, uh, you know, the organizers, Bill Ayers, the organizers of um the weather

underground so the guys are real radical he was uh voted out but of course they were not able to do that with george gascon he was able to uh with technicalities that said well you don't have quite enough verified signatures so we're going to have the recall election i think is the way that went but talk to us a little bit about uh what of these policies look like. Give us some examples of that. I know people know about San Francisco and the absolute chaos that's there, but give us some specific examples that maybe are in your book. Sure. So, you know, broadly speaking, many of these rogue prosecutors, again, they've essentially said there are certain crimes they're not going to prosecute. They've said they're not going to seek to hold people without bail pending their trial. They're going to seek early release for many

offenders. And again, it's because they've bought into these two myths about our criminal justice system. I also think it's important to realize a lot of these policies and the consequences, you know, I'll talk about in just a minute minute here they really stem from something called the prison abolition movement this was a movement back in the 1960s and 70s a marxist inspired movement where people actually said we don't need to have prisons no one needs to go to prison for any reason whatsoever which is a radical idea and many people when they heard that rightly said this is crazy we're not buying into it. And unfortunately, today, many of those same goals and policies have been repackaged and are being implemented under the guise of this rogue prosecutor movement. And so to give you a specific example, in Boston, Rachel Rollins, she was the

Suffolk County District Attorney in Boston there. She actually put out a list of 15 crimes you could commit in Boston that she would not prosecute you for. And under her, I know it's insane. It's like the purge. It's like the purge where you get a free pass to do this stuff, but it's year round. It's not just one day, right? Well, and to tell you how crazy this policy is, under her list of 15 crimes, someone could break into your home they could be armed they could be in possession of a cocaine or another controlled substance and they could resist arrest when the police showed up but so long as the person said they broke into the home initially to find food or get out of the cold or something along those lines rachel rollins wouldn't prosecute that

person for any of those crimes and so you're seeing that same type of policy being implemented in city after city after city and look in our book you know it's a tough read but i think it's a necessary read we highlight eight rogue prosecutors and in each of those chapters where we highlight eight rogue prosecutors in eight different cities around the country we have real life through crime stories that would not, unfortunately, have happened but for the rogue, radical policies of these local elected district attorneys. I remember when I lived in Austin that the district attorney, after she was elected the first time, came out and did the same thing.

Here's a list of things i'm not going to prosecute and uh some of these things were uh you know violent crimes against kids and things like that it was truly amazing to see what a lot of people when they think about this they think about the epidemic of shoplifting that was enabled in san francisco Chesapeake and, uh, that has gotten so out of control that you've got a major, uh, it's, it's going to drive major chains out of business that they don't pull out of that area. And, and that's probably the best example of it, but there's a lot of violent crime that is out there. A lot of, uh, rape and other things like that, uh, that, uh, these prosecutors are saying they won't prosecute.

And yet they will go to the mat, won't they, to get somebody who has a firearm and uses that to defend themselves. That's the other side of this, isn't it? Well, and I think to your point about what's happening in San Francisco and other cities where these stores are closing, I think it's important to realize, you know, many in the rogue prosecutor movement, they spend not prosecuting things like petty theft, simple possession, prostitution. They say these are quality of life crimes. They're essentially victimless, and they don't really cause any harm to society. So they're not going to prosecute them. Well, this idea that they're

victimless crimes is just nonsense. And so you're seeing the consequences of that in places like San Francisco, places like Los Angeles. And so for you or I or other people, you know, driving the extra few miles when a Walgreens or Walmart or some other store closes might not be that big of a deal. But if you're a single mother relying on public transportation, relying on the ability to go to the store, the pharmacy before or after work, having those stores close, having them reduce their hours, that's a big, big deal, a big impact on the quality of that individual's life. And so to say that these crimes are victimless, that they don't have any real consequences, it's just nonsense. And more importantly, you know, when rogue district attorneys say they're not going to prosecute certain crimes, that sends a message that a certain amount of lawlessness is going to be tolerated. And for all of their flaws, criminals aren't stupid in that they understand the incentives they're given, and they understand that if lawlessness will be tolerated with these supposedly small crimes, lawlessness will also be tolerated with more serious crimes as well.

That's right. And if we think about, again, going back to the shoplifting examples in San Francisco, they said, well, you know, we don't want to come after people for petty theft. So we'll set the level at some place. And they set it pretty high, in my opinion, you know, 900 bucks or something like that. It was just under $1,000. We're not going to prosecute that. So what was the result of that?

As you pointed out, people understand that if that's not going to be prosecuted, they started organizing gangs to do this and it became a major criminal operation to fleece the stores because it was very easy to take that and to magnify that into a business. And that's exactly what they did. And that's what's driving these gigantic corporations out of business and shutting everything down, turning it into a kind of zombie ghost town. I mean,

when you look at this, they won't prosecute the shoplifting crime. They're not doing anything to help defend people who would have an honest business. And so it is turning into just a kind of a zombie town of drug dealers laying on the, you know, drug users laying on the street and shuttered businesses everywhere. Well, and again, it harms law-abiding citizens in all of these communities. And I think it's important to realize, too, everyone deserves the public safety privilege. You know, if you live in a middle-class neighborhood, if you live in a wealthy neighborhood, you probably don't have the day-in and day-out petty crime and violent crime that many people in lower-income neighborhoods experience on a firsthand basis. And so one of the ironies of this movement, there are many, but one of the ironies is that many of the elected officials who are pushing

these policies that are harming public safety, they get taxpayer funded security details. But the rest of us, we depend on our Second Amendment rights and police officers to help keep our communities safe. And so, so many in these low-income neighborhoods, these lower-income communities, when policing is either lessened or police officers pull back, crime is not being prosecuted, well, that's unacceptable in so many ways. But often the people who are making the decisions to implement these policies,

they don't have to bear the consequences of their decisions. And let's talk a little bit about what it does even to a coarsening of society. Certainly, it's a threat to your property and maybe even your life to say that we're going to tolerate certain levels of crime. But I know my wife is from New York and from outside of New York City. But, of course, they would have a lot of, they were going to New York City a lot, and she had brothers who would go in, and they were routinely mugged when we were in college. And it kind of leads to a coarsening of society under those types of circumstances where you start to, it just changes everybody's attitude toward everything besides the actual physical danger that you truly are in when they tolerate that type of crime. And so it is

something that's very important. Give us an example of one of the cities and one of the district attorneys and some of the things that they have done there and, you know, that have really blown up. Sure. Well, you know, that have really blown up? Sure. Well, I mean, there's so many stories to choose from, unfortunately. But look, you know, you can go to Philadelphia, talk about Larry Krasner, how but for his policies, but for his failure to prosecute an armed career criminal, Corporal O'Connor, a Philadelphia police officer, would still be alive today. Unfortunately, that armed career criminal shot Corporal O'Connor, a Philadelphia police officer, would still be alive today. Unfortunately, that armed career criminal shot Corporal O'Connor and killed him while Corporal O'Connor was trying to apprehend him. In St. Louis, perhaps some of the most outrageous stories we have in our book under Kim Gardner's tenure as the circuit attorney there in the city of St. Louis take place.

One example that is particularly troubling and really shows incompetence more than anything else is there was a murder defendant and no one from Kimberly Gardner's office, the prosecutor, repeatedly did not show up to court to prosecute that murder defendant. And so you had the defense attorney emailing Kim Gardner's office saying someone from your office needs to show up to prosecute the case. You had the victim's family reaching out, contacting Kim Gardner's office. You even had the judge take the extraordinary step of sending his bail up to Kimberly Gardner's office. This courtroom deputy sitting there saying, I'm going to hold a hearing on X date. Your prosecutor hasn't showed up this many times before.

And if someone from your office does not show up, I'm going to have no choice but to dismiss this case and set this accused murderer free. Well, guess what? Nobody from Kimberly Gardner's office showed up to that next court hearing and the accused murderer was eventually set free because the judge had to, because no one was there to prosecute him. Now, thankfully, he was eventually apprehended later, but that's no excuse for literally having an accused murderer set free back into the community simply because no one from Kimberly Gardner's office could bother to show up to court to prosecute him. And she was removed for cause, wasn't she, for that?

She was removed, and that's one of the things we talk about in the book. You know, there has been some progress made in pushing back against this rogue, radical prosecutor movement, as people become more aware of what exactly many of these rogues are doing, what their policies entail, and the consequences of their policies. And so Kimberly Gardner in St. Louis, she resigned. There's a procedure in place to try to remove her from office. Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, he was recalled by even the leftists in San Francisco. His policies were too radical, too dangerous for them. Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, she lost her bid for re-election and she's currently under federal indictment there in the city of Baltimore. And then in Chicago, Kimberly Fox, one of the first

rogue prosecutors, she's still in office, but she announced that she will not run for re-election. And so there's progress being made to push back against this movement. But I think it's important to realize there's still more work to be done. By our estimates, there are about 70 rogue Soros-Badker-inspired prosecutors in office around the country. There are still many more such candidates running for office. In fact, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the Soros-supported candidates just won the Democratic primary there and looks well-positioned to win the DA's race there in Pittsburgh. And so the work continues, but I think one of the most important things people can do is learn about the movement, understand what it's about, and most importantly recognize what types of talking points and phrases and other things of that nature that candidates who are supported by this movement, who believe in the initiatives of this movement, what they say and what they do. And that way, you know, when you're going to the polls to vote, when you're talking to friends and family members,

you can understand what is being pushed and most importantly, how to push back. That's a key thing. You know, I think when you look at people who've lived in a Marxist country or something like that, right, they can smell it a mile away. You know, this is I know where this is headed. I know that. And so looking at your book and seeing what these people have written and understanding that this is a movement where these people are all thinking like this.

If you get that background that you got in your book as to what their philosophy to government is, I think that's going to be probably the best way that you're going to be able to spot people like this. Because just like somebody who lived under a communist government, you know how they phrase things and their worldview, and you can immediately pick it up if you've seen this. So if you've got their background, you can see that. But give us a little bit of an idea as to how these people deceive voters.

You talked about how they try to present themselves as reformers, but what are some of the dog whistle things that you might see in some of these people who are running for office? Well, the last chapter in the book is called The Way Forward, and that's where we really lay out the blueprint for how to recognize many of these individuals who are running on this rogue, platform and, again, how to push back against them. But, you know, one of the things we found as we were researching and writing this book, when many of these rogue prosecutors first ran for office, they said fairly uncontroversial things. They said they're for a fair criminal justice system. They want everyone to be treated equally under the criminal justice system.

They don't want anyone to be incarcerated unnecessarily. Those are pretty uncontroversial statements that probably everyone would agree with by and large. But what happened when these individuals got into office, it quickly became apparent what they meant by those phrases and what you or I or anyone else on the street might understand those phrases to be are two radically different things. And so in many cases, it was essentially a bait and switch that these prosecutors were implementing. Now, in some cities, some of these rogue prosecutors have been reelected to office. Larry Krasner in Philadelphia is one prominent example, but there are others as well. And unfortunately, in those cities, I suspect things are going to continue to get worse before they ultimately get better.

And so that's a key thing. You can key off some of those phrases, you know, like, you know, we want just punishment and things like that. If that's kind of a priority for them, that might be a real telltale. And I think that this is very important because, as I've said, and you said at the beginning of the interview, most of law enforcement is going to be happening at the local level. We have big high profile cases that get the federal prosecutors involved and everybody talks about them. So that creates a perception that's really where it is. But we want to strengthen and understand, first of all, the reality is that

most of this stuff is happening at the local level. All politics is local, and so is law enforcement, really, for the most part. And we want to keep it that way. And so we want to make sure that we're wise about who we put into office, and we want to make sure that we're not going to get somebody in there who's going to completely shut that down, because we know the other side of that is they're going to be coming after lawful activities as well and persecuting people involved in those lawful activities. It seems to me like, you know, as you're pointing out, some of these people like Kim Gardner has been as resigned and under threats of, you know, being impeached or whatever. And Cheza Boudin was recalled in San Francisco. But of course, that didn't stop things that were happening in San Francisco.

And that's a real warning sign, isn't it? That once you get started in this path, it's really hard to turn the city around, isn't it? Well, I think it's important to realize, too, what many of these prosecutors are doing. They're saying this is prosecutorial discretion, that this is within their power to not prosecute these crimes. And that's just nonsense. Prosecutorial discretion is something that's existed in American and Anglo-American law for many, many years. But what these prosecutors are doing is not prosecutorial discretion as any lawyer who's

practiced in the criminal justice system, who's been a prosecutor or defense attorney or a judge. It's not something they would recognize as prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion is looking at the individualized facts and circumstances of each case and deciding maybe to offer a plea bargain, maybe not to charge because of a lack of evidence or their equitable considerations. But the key thing to remember is it's an individualized determination. What these rogue prosecutors are doing is prosecutorial nullification. In our system of government, it's Civics 101. We have an executive branch that enforces the law that is made by the legislative branch. And so the legislatures in the states where these rogue prosecutors are in power have

decided that certain things should be criminalized, should not be tolerated by society, and that certain punishments should attach to those actions if an individual is convicted of committing them. And so what these prosecutors are doing is essentially taking that legislative role for themselves and saying, I don't like these laws, so I'm going to nullify it. Well, that's not the way our system of government is supposed to work. And again, it creates a host of downstream consequences. And so to your point, you know, I think one of the important things to recognize, important things to understand is getting back to the proper allocation of power among the different branches

of government within our tripartite system of government that we have not only at the federal level, but also at the state and county levels in most places as well. And understanding that this is not the role of the prosecutor to decide their entire categories of crimes that he or she is not going to prosecute. That's something for the legislature to decide, and it's up to the prosecutor to adhere to their oath of office and to faithfully enforce those laws. That's why it doesn't, didn't surprise me to see Obama and Eric Holder, uh, say that they were going to,

um, focus on this because we'd already seen, uh, with, um, uh, Janet Napolitano, uh,

the DACA executive order, uh, saying, well, we're not going to enforce the border laws, you know? And so we're just going to categorically set aside all that stuff. Uh, with DACA, we're going to call it deferred action, but of course

they're going to defer it indefinitely. They never had any intention of making any actions. And so she just nullified in an executive order kind of way, what the laws that had been passed were about the border. And so I thought it was perfectly in keeping with the philosophy of the Obama administration, that they would try to do that same thing at the state and local level. And that's really what this is,

is about, uh, as you pointed out, not using prosecute, uh, prosecutorial discretion in terms of an individual case, but just taking it as an entire, uh,

category and saying, we're going to nullify that law. Uh, but it has been a very effective in terms of destroying areas. And once you start going down that path, it's really hard to reverse course. And we're seeing this happening in city after city. As you see the crime soaring and people being returned. There was a press meeting from the guy of the conservative party in canada uh pierre um and i forget how to pronounce his last um uh who was uh talking

to somebody in the press and they were giving him a hard time because he was complaining about people being uh immediately turned out and uh and he says are you serious i was just talking about this guy got out and they committed a crime and he says, are you serious? I was just talking about how this guy got out and they committed a crime. And he talked about a handful of individuals who had literally dozens of convictions. He said, these people were committing crimes at two times a day because they would be caught and immediately released without any bail. And, uh, he said, and that's what you're advocating is do not understand. And the guy says, well, how does that help anything to keep them in jail? And he goes, well, it helps because they're not out there on the street committing crime. It truly was amazing. And I've

played that clip in the past, but that is the mindset of these people. But I think it's not stupid. I think it is deliberate. I think that's why Soros is doing that. He wants to pull down this system as we see this in so many different ways. They want to pull down the current existing system and the current existing institutions and rebuild it back with something that is to their liking. And I don't think people are going to like the results of it, as we've seen in these other cities. Is there anything else that you would tell us about your book, Rogue Prosecutors, how

radical Soros lawyers are destroying Americaroying America's Communities. I hope everyone will pick up a copy, read it, and learn more about this movement. Again, the ideological background. We highlight true crime stories from eight rogue prosecutors around the country. And, of course, the last chapter is the way forward, how to push back against these radicals and their rogue radical ideology. That's great. And of course, thank you, Zach Smith. And of course, the co-author on that was Culley Stimpson. And I think it's very key for people to understand and to be able to identify

these people, understand their philosophy, understand the way they speak about these issues, because this is a real key issue. And you don't want to see the kinds of stuff that we've seen happening in san francisco uh coming to where you live nobody wants that we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back stay with us let using your eyes. In fact, if you can find all the links to everywhere to watch or listen to the show at the david night show.com that's a website