Critics of President Obama and the Democratic National Committee are seizing on documents released by hacker “Guccifer 2.0” that purportedly show top Obama officials were also huge fundraisers — including former FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who the documents say collected just under $3.5 million in donations for the DNC and another pro-Obama group.
The fact that Genachowski raised a lot of money for Democrats isn’t new, but the massive figure released by Guccifer is. As noted by Multichannel.com, Genachowski is listed in public elections records as a bundler who gave at least $500,000 in 2008 — meaning he or his immediate family collected checks from other donors in excess of that amount. The election records don’t list the exact amount they collected.
Genachowski (or his family, the records don’t specify) gave $11,445 toward Obama’s 2008 election, according to the previously released records.
But the New York Observer — owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — has gone so far as to call it pay-for-play. The “Guccifer” documents also identified other high-ranking Obama appointees as top donors.
Genachowski did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
DNC interim chair Donna Brazile issued a statement cautioning that the documents have not been authenticated, and said the hack seemed to be the work of Russian agents, possibly trying to help Trump.
“There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump,” Brazile said.
Still, the leaked documents do not conflict with the previously available campaign finance records.
During Genachowski’s tenure, he led the FCC’s 2011 vote to approve Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal. The FCC also created the National Broadband Plan, which aimed to provide a roadmap for full broadband access to every American but has been criticized by some economists as a hindrance to innovation.
Before joining the FCC, he worked at the internet and media behemoth IAC. His bio at his current company, Carlyle Group, says he has been a longtime advisor to President Obama on tech.
“Guccifer 2.0” released what the hacker claims are the records for around 100,000 DNC donors on Tuesday night, including contact information and the amounts of their supposed donations.
For the record: This story has been updated since initial publication to reflect that public records show Genachowski was a bundler and did not make all of the contributions personally.