https://www.axios.com/patrick-gaspard-open-society-biden-soros-e28d895e-b4e4-4e92-a621-c40feab7982a.html

Patrick Gaspard, who served as ambassador to South Africa under President Barack Obama, is stepping down as president of George Soros' Open Society Foundations, fueling speculation that he'll join the Biden administration, potentially as Labor secretary.

What to know: Before his stint as ambassador, Gaspard was Obama's political director in the White House, drawing upon his experience in the labor movement to advance Obama's legislative agenda on health care and financial services reform.

As the head of OSF, Gaspard straddles a broad network of progressive groups, with an annual budget of $1.2 billion.

Gaspard will be replaced by Mark Mallock Brown, a British former UN diplomat and member of OSF's board.

What they're saying: "I write to share with you that I will leave Open Society at the end of the year," Gaspard wrote to colleagues. "After four profound years of service to this extraordinary institution, and at a critical juncture for the democracy that is my home, I am compelled to charge once more unto the breech in a new political moment."

The big picture: Soros, a Hungarian-born billionaire who survived the Holocaust, has long been a lightning rod and target of conspiracy theories for some conservative groups, who have accused him of funding Black Lives Matters protestors and migration caravans.

Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani recently questioned Soros's Jewish identity, saying that Soros is “the last person in the world who can claim victimization as being Jewish,” according to Haaretz.

https://www.rt.com/russia/508609-moscow-expel-soros-activist/

The Russian government is set to expel a prominent human-rights activist, with former president Dmitry Medvedev claiming there’s a co-ordinated campaign by international organizations to stoke unrest in the world’s largest state.

Vanessa Kogan, the director of the Stichting Justice Initiative project, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that Russian authorities had notified her of the revocation of her residency permit. She will now have two weeks to leave the country, where she has lived for more than ten years. She also has two children with a Russian national.

The Stichting Justice Initiative is an NGO which, it says, provides legal support to Russians in cases of perceived human rights abuses. It has been less open about its funding in recent years, but in 2010 and 2011, it was bankrolled by the Dutch government and the Hungarian billionaire George Soros. via his ‘Open Society’ pressure group, which has been banned in Russia and declared “undesirable.”

Kogan's work has previously focused on the North Caucasus region, where her group has represented people alleging victimization at the hands of authorities. Its activity in the majority Muslim area has reportedly brought tensions with local leaders, such as Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Republic of Chechnya.