Trump Names Soros, Hoffman in Alleged “Antifa” Funding, Floats RICO Probe

President Donald Trump has escalated his administration’s rhetoric and enforcement posture toward what he describes as “left-wing political violence,” publicly naming billionaire donors George Soros and Reid Hoffman as potential financial backers of unrest that has targeted federal immigration enforcement.

In late September 2025, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing a broad, multi-agency effort to “identify and disrupt” financial networks alleged to support political violence. In public remarks around that action, Trump referenced Soros and Hoffman when asked who might be investigated, saying that if they are funding violence, “they’re gonna have some problems,” according to reporting on the memo and the administration’s stated aims. Reuters+1

The latest framing, repeated across several media reports, is that Trump wants federal authorities to treat the alleged funding stream not as scattered activism, but as a coordinated network that could be investigated using tools typically reserved for organized criminal enterprises, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO. Reuters+2Reuters+2

What Trump is claiming

Trump’s core allegation is that wealthy Democratic-aligned donors and their affiliated networks are indirectly financing “Antifa” and related actors involved in confrontations, property damage, and attacks aimed at ICE operations. Reports on the administration’s strategy describe a whole-of-government approach that could involve the Justice Department, DHS, the FBI, Treasury, and the IRS. Reuters+2Reuters+2

Multiple outlets reported that Trump specifically named Soros and Hoffman as potential funders when pressed for examples, while offering no public evidence detailing a direct financial pipeline from either man to specific acts of violence. Reuters+2AP News+2

That “proof gap” matters, because the jump from heated rhetoric to RICO is not just a change in tone. It is a change in legal theory. RICO cases generally require prosecutors to show an “enterprise” and a “pattern” of predicate criminal acts tied together in a coordinated way. Simply funding lawful nonprofit advocacy, even aggressive advocacy, is not the same thing as funding criminal conduct.

What the memo reportedly directs agencies to do

According to major reporting on the September 25, 2025 memorandum, the administration instructed agencies to focus on financial networks and support systems that allegedly facilitate political violence and to examine whether tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing unlawful activity, potentially including IRS scrutiny of nonprofit status. Reuters+2AP News+2

In other words, the government’s target would not only be the individuals committing crimes on the street, but also the upstream infrastructure: donors, organizations, fiscal sponsors, and any entities alleged to be enabling violence.

This is also where the politics and the civil-liberties debate collide. Critics argue the order risks treating political opposition and protest movements as criminal conspiracies. Supporters argue that if violence is being coordinated and financed, the government has a duty to follow the money.

Soros and Hoffman: what we know about responses so far

Reporting on the memo notes that Soros’ Open Society Foundations condemned terrorism while also denouncing what it called politically motivated attacks on civil society. Reuters+2AP News+2

For Hoffman, Reuters reported he could not immediately be reached for comment at the time of its coverage of Trump’s memo and statements. Reuters

The “Antifa” problem: movement vs organization

A major practical challenge for any sweeping federal crackdown is definitional. “Antifa” is often described as a decentralized, leaderless movement rather than a single organization with membership rolls, command structure, and formal accounts.

That distinction is more than semantics. Some legal experts and civil-liberties groups have argued that trying to treat “Antifa” like a conventional terror group raises constitutional and evidentiary hurdles, especially when enforcement actions might touch speech, association, and protest activity protected by the First Amendment. Reuters+2AP News+2

Major reporting also notes the United States does not have a straightforward statutory mechanism for designating purely domestic groups as terrorist organizations in the same way it designates foreign terrorist organizations, precisely because of constitutional constraints. Reuters+2AP News+2

Why RICO is the administration’s chosen hammer

RICO is designed to address coordinated criminal networks, historically used against the Mafia and other organized crime groups. In modern practice, it can be applied to a range of enterprises if prosecutors can show a continuing organization and a pattern of qualifying crimes.

The administration’s political logic is clear: if it can portray left-wing unrest as an “enterprise” with donors, intermediaries, and operational actors, then it can argue for aggressive investigative tools, asset tracing, and potentially expansive prosecutions.

But the legal burden is heavy. As legal analysts have noted in commentary on Trump’s RICO threats toward Soros, the leap from “support of protests” to “racketeering” would require concrete, case-specific evidence of criminal coordination and intent, not just ideological alignment or philanthropic overlap. Cato Institute+1

The bigger picture: a widening domestic conflict over enforcement power

Reuters and the AP both frame this moment as an escalation in domestic political tension, where federal law enforcement tools risk becoming a central battlefield in partisan conflict. Reuters+2AP News+2

From the administration’s perspective, the argument is that violence against ICE and other federal operations is not random, and that the “network” behind it should be investigated like organized crime.

From critics’ perspective, the concern is that “follow the money” can become “target the opposition,” especially when public evidence is not presented alongside serious allegations.