Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who supports civil society efforts and progressive-minded groups around the world, is the right’s favorite bogeyman, both in the U.S. and abroad. And as the midterm elections draw closer, his name is on the lips of  President Trump and his supporters on the right, who spin phantasmagorical tales of his purportedly tentacled power, and cast him as the source of all evil.

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Today, it’s not just right-wing media that have picked up the theme, it’s national figures in the Republican Party—including President Donald Trump who, on October 5, suggested that those who came to the U.S. Capitol to protest Kavanaugh’s nomination were paid by Soros.

It began with Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a clip posted at The Forward, Fox Business Channel host Maria Bartelromo asked the senator what he made of allegations that Soros paid the protesters, Grassley replied:

“I have heard so many people believe that. I tend to believe it,” the Iowa senator said in response to his thoughts on the Soros rumor in an interview with Fox News. “It fits in his attack mode and how he uses his billions and billions of resources.”