Billionaire Democrat financier, George Soros, lashed out at one of the Democrats’ top 2020 contenders — and Hillary Clinton’s heir apparent — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), for her role in Sen. Al Franken’s fall from grace.

In a Huffington Post article clearly aimed at rehabilitating Franken’s public image — something that seems to be a cause celebre among progressives at the moment — writer Amanda Terkel notes that some of Franken’s most prominent critics have fallen out of favor with the party’s godfather, including Gillibrand.

Soros reportedly accused Gillibrand of going after Franken, “whom I admire,” to “improve her chances” at becoming the party’s 2020 presidential contender.

“If standing up for women who have been wronged makes George Soros mad, that’s on him,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “But I won’t hesitate to always do what I think is right. For nearly a year, we have seen countless acts of courage as women and men have spoken hard truths about sexual assault and sexual harassment and demanded accountability.”

That said, a feud with Soros could harm Gillibrand’s long-term chances at holding an office higher than her current one, but only if she was taking money from Soros to begin with. Soros and his organizations prefer more authentic progressives, which explains why he’s bankrolling a public relations campaign for Franken, but also why Gillibrand — who likely has Clinton’s donor list on file — is pushing back. – READ MORE

Soros, 87, said in a New York Times article published Tuesday that Obama was his “greatest disappointment.”

But he immediately walked back the diss a bit — after an aide prompted him to do so.

Prompted by an aide, he immediately qualified himself, saying that he hadn’t been disappointed by Obama’s presidency but felt let down on a professional level. While he had no desire for a formal role in the administration, he had hoped that Obama would seek his counsel, especially on financial and economic matters. Instead, he was frozen out.

After Obama was elected, “he closed the door on me,” Soros said. “He made one phone call thanking me for my support, which was meant to last for five minutes, and I engaged him, and he had to spend another three minutes with me, so I dragged it out to eight minutes.” He suggested that he had fallen victim to an Obama personality trait. “He was someone who was known from the time when he was competing for the editorship of The Harvard Law Review to take his supporters for granted and to woo his opponents,” Soros said.

He said his main goal as a political activist was to see a return to bipartisanship, a surprising claim in light of his lavish support for the Democrats. It was the extremism of the Republican Party that had prompted him to become a major Democratic donor, he said; he wanted the Republican Party to reform itself into a more moderate party. He said he was not especially partisan himself: “I don’t particularly want to be a Democrat.” – READ MORE