Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

The Department of Justice has been investigating DisruptJ20, a “resistance” group that plotted to shut down President Trump’s inauguration. The DOJ has demanded the IP addresses of visitors, along with any emails, photos and names it can get. But the pipeline of Dj20 funding goes back to George Soros.

And not just Soros.

Money from the Global Justice Alliance went to Refuse Fascism, a group founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which staged violent protests. “Respectable” big money leftist groups like the Hill Snowdon Foundation and Ben and Jerry’s Foundation fund middlemen like the Alliance. And then the Alliance funds “direct action” groups that are willing to get their hands violently dirty.

The DOJ, better than anyone, should understand this model. It’s commonplace among criminals.

And when you go after criminals, you don’t stop with the street thugs. Instead you go after the bosses. The left’s funding pipelines launder money by moving it from respectable foundations to increasingly radical groups until they reach the thugs that mace, club and set fires. The multiple tiers buy their donors respectability and plausible deniability. But it’s nothing that the DOJ can’t easily penetrate.

It’s not all that different from the Castellano era in the Gambino crime family. And it needs to be treated the same way. Fiscal sponsorship of groups that engage in street violence is a crime. Prosecute it!

The Center for Community Change Action, another “direct action” group, recently had its donors exposed. They included Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Approximately $7 million has gone from these big donors to the “direct action” group.

The CCCA has its own groups for which it’s acting as a “fiscal sponsor”. That’s how it works.

The Ford Foundation has become notorious for its backing of Black Lives Matter through the Black-Led Movement Fund whose goal was to raise over $100 million for the black nationalist racist hate group.

There is big money behind the street violence tearing apart America from Ferguson to Berkeley.

And there are big foundations behind the big money. The DOJ took down the big crime families. It’s time for it to take down the big leftist foundations.

Many of these foundations were born in sin. And they’ve only grown worse since.

Their bid for “campaign finance reform” shifted the axis of political finance from donations to political organizations to “outside” groups that matched their agendas. We all live in the cracks of the shadowy political system created by the Ford Foundation, George Soros, Carnegie and MacArthur. The lefty foundations spent over $100 million to make “campaign finance reform” a reality. And that gave them enormous power to control national politics through unaccountable networks and soft money.

American politics was radicalized. The left controlled the foundations and the foundations controlled politics. Democracy was replaced with oligarchy. Campaign finance was made unaccountable under the guise of campaign finance reform. The oligarchy operated under the cover of Orwellian labels like the Democracy Alliance where you can help decide how the country should be run for only $200,000.

All this is ominous enough. But the oligarchy has gone from running the country to funding street riots.

And that’s not just subversion. It’s political terrorism.

What do you call powerful and wealthy organizations that subvert the political system with massive amounts of money and then also incite street violence against an elected government?

The big foundations are a cross between criminal organizations and terrorist groups. And they must be brought down.

“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?” an Elizabethan courtier sardonically observed. “Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

Crime never prospers for the same reason. If it gets big enough, it becomes government. And only Attorney General Sessions and the remaining honest Republicans in the House and Senate can stop it.

The leftist network of foundations is becoming our government. Not only did it rule us for eight years under Obama. But its response to a democratic revolution was an undemocratic counterrevolution. Its “resistance” is no more of a grass roots effort than its “campaign finance reform” bid was.

The “resistance” is the oligarchy using paid rioters to overturn the results of a democratic election.

Refuse Fascism has announced that beginning November 4, it will unleash a series of protests that, “could lead to a situation where this illegitimate regime is removed from power.”

That’s not just a bunch of failed Commies fantasizing. It’s the tip of a money iceberg that leads back to the Hill Snowdon Foundation, the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation and George Soros.

And it gets much bigger.

The Ford Foundation has $12 billion in assets. It distributes $500 to $600 million each year. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation boasts $8.6 billion in assets and around $300 million in annual spending. The MacArthur Foundation has $6.4 billion in assets and hands out $220 million a year. Soros’ Open Society has around $5 billion in assets and passes out over $400 million a year.

That’s billions of dollars being spent every year to subvert the political system and seize power.

The DOJ should deal with the individual thugs involved in violent protests. But it’s even more important to address how they are being financed and organized. And to follow the money trail back to the top.

Congress has an important role in investigating and exposing the big foundations that represent a major threat to our political system. The House Ways and Means Committee has a duty to examine what tax-exempt foundations are doing and to determine how to address their impact on our political process.

Congress tried to tackle the power of the big foundations in the fifties with the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and the foundations ran a successful smear campaign. The Dodd Report today remains an obscure historical footnote. But the problem has become far more urgent.

The foundations have gone beyond exercising great control over education and social policy. They now exercise near total control in some of these areas. They are grappling for the real levers of power from elections to street violence. They are evolving into something like a shadow government.

Foundations with billions in assets have become self-perpetuating institutions that grow more radical with each iteration. Their vast wealth and political agendas give them great power. And that power comes with zero accountability. They have built massive networks using their wealth and power to control our political system. And they are even willing to resort to violence to undermine an election.

And that cannot be tolerated.

The foundations are highly vulnerable. Their origins, their structures, their strategies and their tax exemptions are all very legally dubious. But it will take political will in Congress and the DOJ.

Attorney General Sessions is to be commended for making it clear that street thugs rioting against President Trump and leakers at the NSC will be held accountable. But breaking up a crime ring is all about following the money. And the money trail leads right back to the big foundations.

It’s time to sunset the big, old foundations that have been around for so long that they have become shadow governments. And to open their books and prosecute any funding directed to illegal activities.

As David Horowitz laid out in Big Agenda, it’s time to take on the foundations.

The battle against the big foundations will determine whether our government is to be “of the people, by the people, for the people” or by the Ford Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and by Soros.

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