On Wednesday night, as protesters took to the streets to express their anger over a grand jury's decision not to charge police officers for the killing of Breonna Taylor, video footage of a U-Haul truck being used to distribute signs, shields, possibly weapons and other riot equipment to protesters in Louisville, Kentucky, was widely circulated on social media.
The jury indicted only one of three officers involved in the killing of Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who was fatally shot by Louisville police officers while executing a no-knock search warrant at her apartment.
The officer, Brett Hankison, however, was not charged for her death and was instead indicted on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment, leading protesters to engulf the streets of the city.
U-Haul Rented by Holly Zoller
The clip of the U-Haul truck handing out supplies to demonstrators instantly went viral, leading right-wingers to speculate that the riots were pre-meditated.
And as speculation about the U-Haul's origins mounted, some users shared images of logs leaked by an employee of the storage rental company showing that the truck (Internal Vehicle Number: DC 5593U) was rented by Holly Zoller. The log shows that Zoller picked up the truck on Tuesday morning and was supposed to return it Wednesday morning.
But she never did. At the time of the photo, the status of Zoller's reservation is "Late Not Returned. Zoller later admitted to renting the truck in a phone call, claiming she was only dropping "things off."
Zoller's Ties to Soros Fuel Conspiracy Theory
After some digging, some users found that Zoller works for the "Bail Project" - an organization "designed to combat mass incarceration by disrupting the money bail system – one person at a time." According to her bio on the project's website, she is also the founding organizer of Louisville Books to Prisoners.
It turns out that the Community Outreach Director of the Bail Project is a woman named Dolores Canales, who previously worked as a Soros Justice Fellow, a legal grant given out by George Soros's philanthropic organization, Open Society Foundations.
These coincidences have fueled the long-running conspiracy theory that Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, is orchestrating and funding the protests that have roiled the United States.
In response to the wild allegations, Laura Silber, the chief communications officer for Open Society Foundations, said Mr. Soros had "absolutely not" paid for a U-Haul rental in Louisville, or funded antifa in any way.
"Unfortunately, right-wing trolls continue to spew a lot of false and malicious claims," Silber added. "The Open Society Foundations supports the First Amendment right of every American to petition their government for redress of grievances through peaceful protest."
