The chief of the George Soros-backed Open Society Foundations, viewed as key to advancing the Biden administration agenda, is leaving his post in July.
Tom Perriello, a former Democratic U.S. House member from Virginia, has been executive director of the foundations for five years. He is leaving the job and turning it over to the co-director, Laleh Ispahani, Politico reported.
“I’m so proud of what our @OpenSociety team has done in 5 years to help our partners deliver big for inclusive democracy, racial equity, antitrust, climate, and more,” Perriello said in a tweet. “Long way to go, but arc feels bent. Glad to announce that @lispahani will take over as ExDir of OSUS [Open Society-U.S.] in July.”
Ispahani tweeted her appreciation for the upcoming promotion. Her Twitter background photo features herself and two others wearing face masks.
“I’m extremely proud to be stepping into this role at this uniquely important institution. I plan to keep fighting for democracy and open society,” Ispahani tweeted.
George Soros is a billionaire funder of numerous left-wing causes, and is widely reviled on the Right.
“Periello and Soros love to label as ‘democracy’ what is actually their Democratic Party agenda, as even their mainstream media sycophants admit,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, which investigates nonprofits, told The Daily Signal in an email. “Witness Politico calling Periello a top ‘operative’ supporting Biden administration ‘objectives’ and never mentioning ‘philanthropy,’ because it’s all politics, all the time.”
Walter added:
His replacement, Ispahani, may be even more extremist and harmful, given her background at the Brennan Center and ACLU, which suggests Soros is doubling-down on radical prosecutors bringing chaos to cities.
Politico quoted Soros’ son, Alex Soros, saying, “Five years ago, we looked at the scale of not just the threats, but opportunities for open, inclusive democracy in the United States, and decided to double our investments and hire Tom Perriello to transform the way we worked.”
Under Perriello, 48, the Open Society Foundations changed its funding priorities, Politico reported, while doubling its budget. That meant larger grants that Perriello said helped advance President Joe Biden’s liberal political agenda.
Perriello’s time in Congress was marked by two wave elections. He served a single term in Congress from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, elected with other Democrats when then-Sen. Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 and lost the seat in the ensuing Republican red wave of 2010.
He made an unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for governor in Virginia in 2017. He had the endorsement of Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and several Obama administration alumni campaigned for him. But he lost to then-Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who went on to win the governorship.
Some of the Biden victories that the Soros-backed group takes some credit for are the numerous environmental initiatives in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year.
The organization also takes credit for a Biden executive order this week to devote more federal resources to long-term care, disability care, and child care, according to Politico.
The group also recruited 700,000 new poll workers, Ispahani told Politico.
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