A top bundler for President Barack Obama has intimate connections to the controversial liberal advocacy group J Street as well as the secretive liberal donor network known as the Democracy Alliance.
Deborah Sagner has pledged to raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s reelection campaign, according to the president’s campaign website. This puts her in the same group as Robert Roche, a Shanghai-based American businessman who has been linked to possible illegal international donations to the Obama campaign.
Sagner and her father, Alan, contributed seed money along with Davidi Gilo "that made it possible to launch J Street," according to J Street's blog.
Sagner was also once a member of the Democracy Alliance, a secretive network of wealthy liberal donors who meet twice a year and coordinate donations to favored groups such as Media Matters and the Center for American Progress, according to the Huffington Post.
J Street declares itself to be "the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans." However, its political endorsements and other activities have come under criticism for failing truly to advocate for Israel.
The Washington Free Beacon wrote in May:
The self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" liberal advocacy group J Street is soliciting funds for congressional candidates who are openly hostile to Israel while simultaneously targeting for defeat explicitly pro-Israel lawmakers who do not agree with its radical Middle East agenda
The Free Beacon also noted that the liberal group endorsed "lawmakers who have expressed hostility towards the Jewish state."
Sagner has contributed at least $54,198 to J StreetPAC, records show. She also donated $63,950 to the J Street Education Fund between 2009 and 2010.
Beyond bankrolling the organization, Sagner has served in high leadership positions for the group. J Street’s 2010 IRS form listed her as the chair of the J Street Education Fund, and an editorial that she wrote for PolitickerNJ described her as the "President of the J Street Education Fund."
Sagner called the prevailing policy positions regarding Israel "narrow political orthodoxy" in that editorial, and implied that those who hold pro-Israel positions are "unthinking."
She wrote, "It’s become increasingly clear that to be pro-Israel, one need not provide unthinking support for any and all Israeli policies, but rather work to achieve Israel’s long-term peace and security interests."
Sagner told the Huffington Post that she left the Democracy Alliance because it increasingly favored organizations that had closer and closer ties to the Democratic Party.
"I was sorry to see that the DA has continued on the trajectory away from funding independent infrastructure," she told the online news outlet. She also described the donor network as "great idea" when it was first created.
George Soros helped found the Democracy Alliance, which has come under scrutiny for its secretive practices. The network, cofounded by the liberal billionaire after Democratic defeats in 2004, forbids its members from talking publically about the organization.
Soros has connections to J Street, as well, which J Street’s president is known to have obscured. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami issued a statement in 2010 explaining misleading statements he has made about Soros’s involvement:
I accept responsibility personally for being less than clear about Mr. Soros’ support once he did become a donor. I said Mr. Soros did not help launch J Street or provide its initial funding, and that is true. I also said we would be happy to take his support. But I did not go the extra step to add that he did in fact start providing support in the fall of 2008, six months after our launch. …
The law guarantees donors their privacy and confidentiality. Nevertheless, my answers regarding Mr. Soros were misleading. I deeply and genuinely apologize for that.
Ben-Ami said Soros and his family have "contributed an average of $250,000 per year over the last three years (2008-2010) and their support amounts to just over seven percent of the total funds raised by the J Street family of organizations."
It is unclear whether Soros’s donations have pushed J Street in the more overtly partisan direction that caused Sagner to leave the Democracy Alliance.
Sagner did not respond to a request for comment.