Dozens of Democratic congressional candidates are being boosted, to the tune of over $100,000, by a trustee for a Rockefeller family group funding anti-Israel protest organizers.
David Rockefeller Jr., a businessman and trustee for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has doled out the six-figure checks combined this election cycle to House hopefuls and to a political action committee supporting Democrats, Federal Election Commission filings show. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a private foundation based in New York, has come under fire following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel over the millions of dollars it sends to the progressive activists behind Hamas-friendly protests in the United States.
The RBF is governed by a board of trustees, half of whom are members of the Rockefeller family, who “set policies related to the fund’s management, governance, investment practices, and grantmaking activities,” according to the private foundation.
News of the donations, some of which were the maximum allowed under federal law, could prove to be a liability for the candidates as they work to frame themselves as challenging antisemitism. Laura Gillen, who is running in New York to unseat Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), released an antisemitism action plan last month. Sue Altman, a New Jersey Democrat challenging Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ), recently criticized the “ugly antisemitism” on display at Columbia University’s anti-Israel protests. Similarly, Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) helped introduce a resolution in 2023 “recognizing Israel as America’s legitimate and democratic ally and condemning antisemitism.”
But Gillen, Altman, and Golden, like other candidates this election cycle, have raked in large campaign donations from Rockefeller. His group, along with a sprawling network of anti-Israel organizations, is under congressional investigation for financing “pro-Hamas, antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American protests with illegal encampments on American college campuses.”
“Now that these Democrats have been made aware of the far-left, pro-Hamas source of these funds, will they have the moral clarity to immediately return the money?” asked Sam Markstein, spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The Jewish community should not hold its collective breath.”
The RBF did not respond to a request for comment. The group insisted in a May statement that it “had no direct involvement in the campus protests” and did not earmark grants for such activism. The RBF noted, however, that some of its grantees “have provided training, messaging, and/or legal support to student protest leaders.”
The RBF funds organizations linked to anti-Israel protests such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Adalah Justice Project, grant records show. In July, activists from Jewish Voice for Peace organized a protest inside a congressional building that led to hundreds of arrests.
The trio of groups blamed Israel last year for the Hamas-led massacre, which killed over 1,200 in the Jewish state, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League.
Palestine Legal, which is housed at a major Democratic-allied grantmaker called the Tides Center, has received at least $515,000 from the RBF in recent years. Formed in 2012, Palestine Legal has worked to represent antisemitic college groups, the Washington Examiner reported. The RBF also donated in 2022 to a project at Alliance for Global Justice, an Arizona-based charity linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group.
Moreover, the RBF has provided financial support over the years to the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Defense for Children International-Palestine, an Israeli-designated terrorist organization, grant records show. The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, also known as Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, was at the center of a 2018 report in Tablet linking the group to the Hamas-linked Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee.
At the same time, financial disclosures reviewed by the Washington Examiner show that Democratic candidates are being boosted by the wealth of Rockefeller, the RBF trustee. House Victory Project 2024, a joint fundraising committee spending millions of dollars to prop up Democrats in competitive races, pocketed almost $50,000 from Rockefeller this year.
In late June, House Victory Project transferred $545,900 to the campaign for Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), who faces a tough challenge from Republican Gabe Evans. Caraveo said in January, “We must also continue our commitment to confronting antisemitism.” Caraveo also received a maximum $3,300 donation from Rockefeller, records show.
Caraveo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. House Victory Project’s second largest single transfer, $543,545, went to Gillen’s campaign.
In April, as anti-Israel activists protested at Columbia University, Gillen called the events “shocking” and demanded college presidents “condemn this hate mongering and ensure the safety of all students.” That week, the Rockefeller-backed Jewish Voice for Peace, which was suspended at Columbia for expressing “threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” doubled down on demands for the school’s administration to condemn “the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians.”
Still, federal records show that two months later, in June, Gillen accepted a maximum $3,300 contribution directly from Rockefeller. Gillen’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
“The growing antisemitism from the grassroots of the Democrat Party is paralyzing its leadership from acting with moral clarity in support of Israel,” said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC. “Now, the very funders and backers of the antisemitism movement are being asked to bankroll Democrat campaigns.”
Rockefeller has also cut large checks to Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Susan Wild (D-PA), as well as former New York Rep. Mondaire Jones, among other candidates. Rockefeller notably made a $50,000 donation in June to Harris Action Fund, Vice President Kamala Harris’s joint fundraising committee.
The Washington Examiner reached out for comment to every House campaign that accepted donations from Rockefeller this election cycle — but just one replied in time for publication.
“Congressman Ryan unequivocally condemns antisemitism and is working every day to stamp out hate in all its forms,” said Sam Silverman, a spokesman for the Ryan campaign. “That’s why he proudly led the fight in the House to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act and why he literally voted for a bipartisan bill to condemn antisemitism on university campuses.”
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Still, to Parella, Ryan and other Democratic candidates contradict themselves by holding on to the donations from Rockefeller.
“If these Democrats are as serious about ‘fighting antisemitism’ or ‘standing with Israel’ as they pretend to be, they must return this money and condemn the antisemitism behind it,” Parella said.
