On Aug. 27, 2025, President Donald Trump wrote that George Soros and his son should be charged under the federal racketeering law.
asserted
Soros → write → law
That same day, a court in Tbilisi froze the bank accounts of the Civil Society Foundation, the renamed Georgian branch of Soros’s Open Society network, in a “sabotage” case opened on a complaint from a pro-government group.
asserted
court → freeze → group
Americans might read the two events as one fight.
uncertain
Americans → read → fight
In Georgia, the war over Soros is fought between people who came out of the same donor world.
asserted
who → fight → world
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, whose party calls Western-funded groups agents of revolution, coordinated a USAID education project in 2000 and 2001 and managed United Nations Development Programme projects from 2006 to 2014.
asserted
party → call → 2014
In 2011 and 2012, he sat on the expert committee of the Open Society Georgia Foundation’s human rights and rule-of-law program.
asserted
he → sit → program
In 2012, he was also helping Bidzina Ivanishvili found Georgian Dream.
asserted
Ivanishvili → help → Dream
In 2023, he accused USAID of training activists for a coup.
asserted
he → accuse → coup
The speaker of parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, spent 17 years at GIZ, Germany’s state development agency, according to his biography.
uncertain
speaker → spend → biography
By the end of September, all four German political foundations, among them the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which once gave Samkharadze a scholarship, had been forced to suspend their work in Georgia.
asserted
which → give → Georgia
Their patron knew the donor personally.
asserted
patron → know → donor
On Dec. 1, 2012, two months after taking power, then-Prime Minister Ivanishvili received George Soros at his hilltop business center in Tbilisi.
asserted
Ivanishvili → take → Tbilisi
The next day, Soros met Saakashvili.
asserted
Soros → meet → Saakashvili
In January 2013, Ivanishvili met Soros again, at Davos.
asserted
Ivanishvili → meet → Davos
Its founding generation came out of the same world a decade earlier.
asserted
generation → come → world
The Liberty Institute, which the U.S. Helsinki Commission reported was funded by Soros’s Open Society Institute, was co-
asserted
Commission → report → Institute
Kakha Lomaia ran the Open Society Georgia Foundation on the day of the 2003 Rose Revolution and became education minister three months later.
asserted
Lomaia → run → Revolution
Giorgi Papuashvili directed the foundation’s rule-of-law program until February 2004, became justice minister that month, and chaired the Constitutional Court from 2006 to 2016.
asserted
Papuashvili → direct → 2016
The traffic ran both ways.
asserted
traffic → run → ways
Sozar Subari directed a Liberty Institute project, served as Georgia’s ombudsman, became a minister in Ivanishvili’s government, and, in 2022, co-founded People’s Power, the Georgian Dream offshoot that introduced the “foreign agents” bill in 2023.
asserted
that → direct → 2023
I served in that parliament, for that party, from 2008 to 2012.
asserted
I → serve → 2012
I came to it from the security services, not from a grant.
asserted
I → come → grant
The money moved, too.
asserted
money → move → ?
In January 2004, Soros’s institute and the UNDP launched a fund that paid salary supplements of $1,500 a month to the president, the speaker, and the prime minister, and $1,200 to ministers and the prosecutor general.
asserted
that → launch → ministers
Its director, Kote Kublashvili, became chief justice of the Supreme Court in 2005 and held the post for a decade.
asserted
director → become → decade
Ivanishvili tells a different story.
asserted
Ivanishvili → tell → story
In a 2012 interview with Obiektivi TV, he said he had financed that fund “from beginning to end.”
asserted
he → say → end
From the Soros foundation, he explained, “we used only its name”: he had business in Russia, “and Russia would not have liked this.”
asserted
Russia → explain → this
The Soros name, he said, “served us well.”
asserted
he → say → us
He described a second fund for the security ministries, above all the Defense Ministry, whose minister, Irakli Okruashvili, sent him reports.
asserted
minister → describe → reports
My own salary supplement came from Ivanishvili, not from Soros.
asserted
supplement → come → Soros
In my old trade, that has a name: cover.
asserted
that → have → name
A billionaire with business in Russia paid Georgia’s officials under an American philanthropist’s name so that Moscow would not notice.
asserted
Moscow → pay → name
Today, his party treats that same name as the mark of a foreign agent.
asserted
party → treat → agent
The pattern holds today.
asserted
pattern → hold → ?
Tina Bokuchava, who chairs Saakashvili’s United National Movement, worked for the National Democratic Institute, the Democratic Party-affiliated democracy group, from 2009 to 2011.
asserted
who → chair → 2011
Salome Samadashvili, political secretary of the opposition party Lelo, ran NDI’s parliamentary program in Georgia before she became a lawmaker and an ambassador.
asserted
she → run → Georgia
Formula, one of the two main opposition channels, was founded and financed by Davit Kezerashvili, a former defense minister in Saakashvili’s government.
asserted
Formula → found → government
At the bottom of the other’s website, TV Pirveli, the only partner banner links to the Open Society Georgia Foundation.
asserted
banner → link → Foundation
Western donors built Georgia’s political class on both sides; that is what donors do.
asserted
donors → build → what
…and 27 more, not listed.
The Aporia
