Coming off today’s hearing Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing appeared on Lou Dobbs show this evening pushing a noxious set of bananas conspiracy theories about George Soros controlling the State Department and the FBI.

Holy Shit! Rudy/Trump confidant DiGenova spouts wild list of bananas conspiracy theories after hearing: "There is no doubt that George Soros controls a large part of the foreign service part of the State Department and the activities of FBI agents overseas who work with NGOs." pic.twitter.com/J7ulAKXvb3 — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 14, 2019

These may sound funny or loopy. But they are right out of the propaganda mills of Hungary’s Viktor Orban and other rightist anti-Semitic movements in Eastern Europe. Indeed, it’s basically the same set of conspiracy theories which led to Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell being banished from Fox a year ago.

I was the first one to highlight what he’d said and what was behind it. That was also on Lou Dobbs show. Farrell’s rhetoric and theories were identical to those which had only a short time earlier inspired the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

DiGenova and Toensing didn’t use the same “Soros-occupied State Department” line which is a reference to stock phrases used in neo-Nazi and white supremacist literature. But it’s the same argument, with the same origins.