Some of the largest charities in the world are bankrolling a pair of nonprofit organizations that serve as the parent organizations for a group encouraging jury nullification and “non-cooperation” with law enforcement in the nation’s capital, a Washington Examiner review of tax disclosures has found.
Between 2020 and 2024, the most recent year for which information is available, mainstream philanthropies, foundations headed by major Democratic donors, Democrat-aligned dark money groups, major labor unions, and nonprofit group grant makers linked to the family of liberal megadonor George Soros have pumped roughly $40 million into the Center for Community Change and Community Change Action, records show. Community Change and Community Change Action serve as the parent organizations to Free DC, a local group that critics have accused of encouraging jury nullification in politically sensitive cases.
Free DC’s website indicates that it is a “fiscally hosted special project” of the duo of nonprofit organizations. A fiscal sponsorship means that Free DC is housed within Community Change and Community Change Action and can take advantage of their tax-exempt status, administration resources, funds, and other services without itself registering with the IRS.
Not all the money donated to Community Change and Community Change Action, however, goes directly to Free DC. Some donations, for instance, are earmarked for other projects housed within the nonprofit group’s network. The Washington Examiner’s analysis only included contributions marked for “general support” and similarly broad purposes, as those support the broader infrastructure that Free DC benefits from.
Free DC has, for months, been hosting regular seminars as part of its “Juror Information Project,” teaching attendees how they can “influence outcomes” for the sake of equity, according to the group’s website. The goal of these lectures is to inform possible D.C. jurors on how they can make jury duty an opportunity for political activism by impeding the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported.
The jury trainings are reportedly well attended, with Free DC’s website indicating they often run out of space for participants. A journalist with the Washington Post reported approximately two dozen individuals attended one such event.
As these training sessions have continued, observers have noticed a trend in Washington: suspected criminals with clear evidence against them are failing to be indicted by grand juries or convicted at trial. These defendants are often accused of assaulting or otherwise impeding federal law enforcement officers deployed by the Trump administration.
The lack of indictments, coupled with the seemingly clear evidence of crimes tied to efforts to impede the Trump administration, has led some observers to suspect jury nullification — a process through which juries can opt to let a defendant go if they feel it is the right thing to do, regardless of what the law says.
“May I suggest another possibility? Federal grand juries in the District of Columbia, made up (almost) entirely of critics of President Trump, are engaging in nullification of the Trump Administration’s federal law enforcement efforts,” Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law, wrote for Reason in August 2025. “Historically, at least, the concept of jury nullification was viewed as a popular check against tyrannical governments. I imagine an average D.C. resident who can take time off from work to serve extended periods of federal grand jury duty may see himself in that fashion.”
In one case, three D.C. grand juries voted against indicting a woman who allegedly assaulted an FBI agent outside the D.C. jail while protesting immigration enforcement, leaving the female agent with a lacerated hand. In another case, a man who was caught on camera throwing a sandwich at a law enforcement officer in D.C. failed to be indicted with a felony by a grand jury and was later acquitted by a different jury of a misdemeanor charge.
One individual who a D.C. grand jury declined to indict was, according to prosecutors, caught on camera stating that he would “protect the Constitution by any means necessary,” including “killing the president.”
Though jury nullification is a concept considered radical by many, Free DC’s parent organizations have received checks from some of the biggest names in philanthropy.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York, for instance, gave Community Change and Community Change Action $1.7 million between 2020 and 2024. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation provided roughly the same amount over the same period. The Ford Foundation, one of the nonprofit group network’s largest backers, gave it roughly $5.6 million.
By far the largest single publicly disclosed backer of Community Change and Community Change Action was the Soros family. Grantmaking outfits funded and controlled by the Soros family poured $13.4 million into the duo of nonprofit organizations between 2020 and 2024. Charities linked to Pierre Omidyar, a liberal philanthropist who has been likened to Soros, provided $600,000 in support of the duo of nonprofit organizations.
Other big names in Democratic politics cut big checks as well.
The Heising Simons Action Fund and the Heising Simons Foundation, led by a married pair of Democratic megadonors for whom the nonprofit organizations are named, gave close to $3.5 million to the pair of organizations fiscally sponsoring Free DC.
Organizations in the Tides network, one of the biggest Democrat-aligned dark money outfits, provided just over $2 million in support, while those operating, at the time, under the similarly aligned Arabella Advisors network, gave Community Change and Community Change Action approximately $2.5 million. Future Forward USA Action, the primary dark money operation that backed former President Joe Biden, and later Vice President Kamala Harris, for their presidential bids, also tossed the two nonprofit organizations a quarter of a million dollars in 2024.
Even unions got in on the actions, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Chicago Teachers Union, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, National Education Association, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union cutting a slew of five and six-figure checks to the groups housing Free DC.
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“When these groups tell people to use jury service to ‘protect our people’ and advance a political cause, they’re not neutrally explaining civic duty,” Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), previously told the Washington Examiner. “They’re encouraging prospective jurors to ignore the law and the judge’s instructions in favor of leftist ideology. That’s an effort to rig outcomes before a trial even begins.”
Free DC did not respond to a request for comment.
