Dem House Candidate Rakhi Israni Gave to MAGA Republicans, Laura Loomer

A brand new Democratic candidate in California’s 14th Congressional District main raised eyebrows when she introduced she raised $2 million within the first two weeks of her marketing campaign. Rakhi Israni threw her hat into the race for Rep. Eric Swalwell’s seat within the strongly Democratic leaning district only a few weeks in the past and shortly introduced within the massive money from donors whose identities are, for now, unknown.

The $2 million in donations aren’t the one eyebrow-raising political donations Israni has been concerned in.

Public filings on his personal political employees giving reveal years of help for far-right Republicans. The record of those that have acquired her money embody MAGA candidates, the Republican head of the evangelical Zionist group Christians United for Israel, anti-abortion candidates, and even far-right pundit Laura Loomer, in accordance to disclosures reviewed by The Intercept.

“Let me be unequivocal: I oppose Trump’s attacks on our democracy, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his assault on reproductive freedom, and the division he has fueled in this country,” Israni mentioned in an announcement to The Intercept. “I reject MAGA politics.”

Israni, a first-time political candidate with a historical past of Hindu nationalism advocacy, is difficult a clutch of progressive Democrats: state Sen. Aisha Wahab; progressive Democratic strategist Matt Ortega; BART board president Melissa Hernandez; and immigration legal professional Abrar Qadir. Swalwell, who’s leaving the seat to run for governor of California, has not but endorsed a candidate within the main.

With Israni’s previous political donations coming to mild, Ortega questioned how she got here to donate to far-right figures.

“Why did Rakhi Israni give cash to Laura Loomer? Was it that Laura Loomer calls herself a ‘proud Islamophobe‘? Or maybe it was Laura Loomer calling Islam ‘a most cancers on humanity’ that received her help?” Ortega mentioned in an announcement. “There is no version of this story where Rakhi Israni giving money to Laura Loomer is acceptable. None. “It’s disqualifying.”

Wahab, for her half, advised Israni is likely to be out of step with voters within the deep-blue district.

“Our district wants and deserves a real Democrat — pro-choice, pro-democracy, and firmly against extremism — not someone bankrolling MAGA-extremists and far-right allies, pretending to be something they’re not,” Wahab mentioned in an announcement to The Intercept. “People will look closely at who funds a campaign, a candidate’s record, and whether their record matches their rhetoric.”

In her assertion, Israni mentioned, “Over the course of my professional career, I have engaged broadly and, at times, supported individuals across the political spectrum. Those contributions were not ideological endorsements of every position a candidate has taken, nor do they reflect support for extreme rhetoric or divisive statements.”

Donating to the Far Right

Israni’s private political donation historical past tracks with help for Hindu nationalism and pro-Israel candidates and contains donations to a few of the most far-right and MAGA candidates which have run for Congress lately.

In 2022, she gave $4,200 to Republican Rich McCormick’s profitable marketing campaign for a Georgia House seat, in accordance to Federal Election Commission information. McCormick was additionally endorsed by the Hindu American PAC, the place Israni sits on the board. Last yr, she donated $3,500 to a Republican candidate in California’s thirteenth Congressional District, months earlier than the candidate hosted MAGA determine Matt Gaetz at a “Save California” rally.

Another far-right candidate Israni gave cash to was New York Republican Robert Cornicelli, who ran within the 2022 GOP main for the 2nd Congressional District in Long Island on a platform that included abolishing the Department of Education. Cornicelli can be president of Veterans for America First, also referred to as Veterans for Trump. He is vowel about what he calls “radical Islam” and final yr self-published a book titled “What is White? A Manifesto on How Elites Erased Your Culture and Made You the Enemy.”

Israni contributed $260.73 to Laura Loomer’s 2020 Florida congressional main run. Loomer is a controversial MAGA loyalist and casual Trump adviser who as soon as celebrated the deaths of hundreds of Muslim refugee households. She wrote “now it’s time to round up the Muslims before it’s too late” on X late final week. The Hindu American PAC gave Loomer $5,000 that same year, whereas Israni was on the board. In 2024, Loomer was broadly criticized for mustache remarks about Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage.

The Hindu American PAC, with Israni on the board, additionally gave $5,000 to Devin Nunes in 2020, a former Trump Cabinet member who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump the next yr.

Other private donations made by Israni to Republicans embody $1,500 in 2022 to California Rep. Michelle Steel, who supported overturning Roe v. Wade, and $1,500 in 2024 to a failed marketing campaign by Niraj Antani, an anti-abortion activist and self-proclaimed “pro-Trump conservative warrior.”

In 2024, Israni gave $1,000 to Tulsi Gabbard’s management PAC, which contributed solely to Republicans that cycle. Today, Gabbard is Trump’s director of nationwide intelligence. Israni additionally supported the Republican govt director of Christians United for Israel, David Broggwhen he ran in Nevada’s 1st Congressional District.

One Texas Republican who acquired $250 from Israni in 2022, Pat Fallon, had voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In whole, she gave to over 10 MAGA candidates, greater than the Democratic candidates she donated to lately, which included Mikie Sherrill for New Jersey governor and several other Indian American candidates across the nation.

In his assertion, Israni mentioned, “I am a Democrat running for Congress in California’s 14th District because I believe in accountability, protecting fundamental rights, defending democracy, and delivering real economic results for the families who make up our district. As the only attorney in this race, I bring the legal experience necessary to hold Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, and any form of extremism accountable.” (Contrary to Israni’s assertion, Qadir can be an legal professional.)

Israni and Wahab’s Past

Irsani and Wahab, considered one of her House main opponents, beforehand discovered themselves on the alternative sides of a legislative tussle. In Sacramento, Wahab launched laws in 2023 that might make California the primary state to add caste-based discrimination to non-discrimination legislation. Proponents of the bill noticed it as a approach to deal with alleged discrimination primarily based on somebody’s “caste,” their place in a system of inherited social stratification in South Asian societies and diasporas.

At the time, Israni testified towards the invoice at statehouse hearings, calling it an “unconstitutional denial of my community’s rights to fairness and equal protection under the law.”

The legislation was additionally opposed by the Hindu American Foundation, a controversial Indian American diaspora advocacy group whose lobbying is aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities. Israni served as a board member of the Hindu American PAC, a bunch that shares management with the Foundation.

Wahab — the primary Afghan American lady elected to public workplace within the US — said she acquired violent threats in response to the proposed laws, which was reportedly the target of coordinated opposition from main Democratic Indian American donors and Hindu nationalist networks. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom finally vetoed the invoice.

Israni’s record of marketing campaign donors will not be publicly filed till mid-April. With ballots mailing out in May, that leaves little time for voters within the district to evaluate their backers. A company lawyer who owns a testing preparatory firm together with her husband, she announced on January 23 that she raised over $1 million within the first 24 hours of her marketing campaign. Less than two weeks later, on February 4, she claimed the overall raised was almost $2 million.

Israni has hyperlinks to American organizations aligned with the Hindutva motion — a Hindu nationalist political tendency. She appeared at latest occasions hosted by the Hindu American Foundation and spoke on a panel known as “Hinduphobia & Antisemitism: Two Sides of the Same Coin” on the group’s conference final yr. She additionally served as an govt at Sewa International USA, a world Indian charity tied to Hindutva teams. And Israni wrote about internet hosting Modi at a Silicon Valley reception in 2015.

A deleted accounts reviewed on the Internet Archive that’s tied to Israni’s e-mail shared frequent content material in help of Modi and the Indian authorities.