Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Wikileaks docs show how Dem donor tried (and failed) to get back into the game

Posted in:

Illinois

The thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee emails posted online by Wikileaks drew plenty of attention over the weekend and led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Locally, the leak also revealed how a wealthy and one-time prolific Illinois campaign donor sought to get back into the good graces of the Democratic Party.

Niranjan Shah, CEO of Globetrotters Engineering, repeatedly has been shut out of DNC fundraising events, including ones with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the emails show. In 2009, Shah resigned as University of Illinois board chairman after the Chicago Tribune’s “Clout Goes to College” series unveiled an admissions scandal at the university.

The report detailed how influential politicians and appointees, including Shah, used their political ties to gain favorable treatment for family members and friends. Shah also used his influence to get a job for his future son-in-law at the university, the Tribune reported.

Go read the whole thing. Fascinating stuff. You can also search the leaked DNC Wikileaks page by clicking here.

* Related…

* Illinois Sanders delegates call DNC email leak ‘outrageous’

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 10:11 am

Comments

“The report detailed how influential politicians…used their political ties to gain favorable treatment”

In all seriousness, while I recall the “outing” of University officials, I don’t remember seeing the names of any of the politicians that were making the calls to put pressure on the admissions offices.

Comment by Downstate Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 10:49 am
“how influential politicians and appointees, including Shah, used their political ties..”

I recall the University officials succumbing to political pressure were publicized. But I don’t remember any of the elected officials that were applying pressure for admissions ever being identified.

Comment by Downstate Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 11:03 am
I used to work for the guy about 10 years ago. I personally liked him, but he had more than one “administrative assistant” quit on him within the first few days. It wasn’t about making money from politics for the guy, it was about ego. in fact, when he was named to the U of I board of Trustees, we lost a lot of business from UIC and had to lay people off because of it. His daughter got her master’s in Engineering from MIT and was an intern in the Clinton White House. She took a lot of garbage from that. I met Obama for the first time through him back when he was running for the state senate.

Strangely enough, he wasn’t very partisan. His COO is a very active GOP leader in Dupage, and I was pretty vocal about politics in the newspaper and he never complained.

He used to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom when Clinton was POTUS. I guess he won’t be Hillary’s houseguest anytime soon….

Comment by Illinois Bob Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 11:20 am
Downstate, try the Google. The core of the scandal was legislators and other electeds clouting their kids, relatives, and contributors’ kids into the U of I. Heck, iirc, Madigan was number one on the list.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 12:24 pm
AA,
Thanks! I’ve never seen that before. Funny how the ones that succumbed to outside pressure were either terminated or resigned. While the ones that initiated the entire fracas simply walked away unscathed.

Comment by Downstate Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 12:30 pm
The things that lawyers have to do! Patrick Collins as a white knight seems so far away now.

Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 25, 16 @ 1:35 pm