Patrick Gaspard to leave George Soros' Open Society Foundations

• 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.