Billionaire George Soros spent $16.2 million on lobbying efforts in President Donald Trump’s first year in office — a record amount for his group, The Washington Free Beacon reports.
Citing federal disclosure forms, the conservative newspaper said Soros’s non-profit group, The Open Society Policy Center, spent the money in 2017 to push for domestic and international issues, including several regarding North Korea and nuclear issues.
Those included the Restricted First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018, and the Preventing Preemptive War in North Korea Act of 2017.
Jonathan Kaplan, a spokesman for the Open Society Policy Center, told the newspaper the group was so active last year because “there was a lot going in 2017: Protecting immigrants and refugees, preserving fairness in the tax code, advocating for criminal justice reform, pressing for disaster relief for Puerto Rico, and promoting a progressive U.S. foreign policy.”
The Daily Caller reported that the Open Society Policy Center spent $10.3 million on lobbying in the last quarter of 2017 alone. The group’s report was filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
The most Soros had spent on lobbying before last year was $12.4 million in 2014, the Free Beacon reported. The Open Policy Center’s average annual lobbying spending is around $2 million.
The Open Policy Center is a separate entity from Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
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