Identity theft wasn’t supposed to be part of writing checks to the Democratic National Committee.

The massive data breach that drove the DNC’s chairwoman out the door has now swept up the party’s biggest donors too, their Social Security numbers and personal information compromised by hackers and forcing fundraisers to spend money to protect themselves.


“All my shit was hacked,” said a major donor, who has given to the Democrats for years. “Now, I’ve got to have LifeLock on my 6-year-old daughter’s Social Security number.”

“I already got a call that someone was trying to use my Social Security number,” said Eric Schoenberg, a top DNC donor and adjunct professor at the Wharton School of Business, who said a person applied for an online loan with his information. “The answer is: Nobody is safe.”

In conversations with nearly two dozen top DNC donors and DNC officials, POLITICO found the same set of concerns and complaints repeatedly: Donors are seeing hackers attempt to use their personal financial information, they’re being harassed online, they're anxious about the continuing fallout of the data breach and they’re angry that the DNC did not better protect their most sensitive data.

But asked whether any of that would stop them from giving more to the DNC, many of these donors cited Donald Trump and said the party could expect their checks to keep rolling in.

“We're highly motivated, and much like anything else you're committed to, you have to overcome the unwanted obstacles, and you move forward,” said Jay Jacobs, a prominent party fundraiser and DNC member from New York, whose information was in the hack.

The DNC acknowledges the scope of the problem it has been dealing with. “In the last three weeks, it’s become clear that there was an attack on the DNC,” said one DNC official. “A significant portion of that attack focused on the finance portion.”

Interim party chair Donna Brazile has been calling these big-money donors to talk through the DNC response, and that’s helped ease some of their anger. Schoenberg, for example, credits the DNC for being “very apologetic.”

But the attack has sent shivers through the Democratic donor community just as pleas from party fundraisers in the final stretch of the 2016 election cycle intensify, and not all donors are as forgiving.

A first-time high-dollar donor from North Carolina, whose information had also been previously leaked in the Office of Personnel Management hack of information announced last year, was disappointed with the DNC for not reaching out.

“Someone tried to steal my wife’s identity. Somebody applied for credit in her name the Monday after it happened,” the donor said, describing “disappointment” about not hearing directly from the DNC and reluctant to speak publicly for fear of being targeted again. “She immediately put a freeze on everything.”

Some donors now say the fault sits with DNC staff for keeping sensitive information on accessible servers.

“Date of birth, Social, and name is all you need to take out a home equity line. You have anything that any idiot needs to do some form of identity theft [and] financial fraud,” one of the donors said. “Don’t have Social Security number on your servers, ever. Don’t do it.”

The data breach has also led to donors getting bombarded with angry calls, texts, emails and tweets. Some say the online harassment led them to stop using their cellphones and email for a few days after the hack. They felt the DNC response to this harassment fell short as well, arguing that staff should have reached out more directly to apologize or give them any sense of the response.

But beating Trump, many said, has overridden all of this, as well as the worries about the state of the DNC mismanagement.

The DNC has been trying to calm concerns. In addition to Brazile’s one-on-one conversations, she has held several conference calls — including one for the national finance committee that had over 1,000 participants, according to the DNC. Last week, the DNC sent around a memo outlining the response and the members of the new Cybersecurity Advisory Board. The DNC’s legal counsel, according to the memo obtained by POLITICO, has already “thoroughly reviewed” the hacked information to get an accounting of who was effected.

“Those individuals receiving the data breach notice also will receive offers of assistance to help mitigate any threats to their financial security,” Brazile wrote in the memo, noting that varying state laws are governing how they inform potential victims. “Details concerning the breach and other pertinent information for victims will soon be available.”

So far, there has not been any chilling effect on giving, according to the DNC.

“If that would be incentive to those who attacked us, I’m sorry, it didn’t have the intended effect,” the DNC official said.

After all, the DNC has donors like Scott Wallace, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropist and major D.C. donor, who said he hasn’t experienced any personal blowback from the hack and isn’t worried about it.

“I have always had very little expectation of privacy in my political contributions, given [Federal Election Commission] transparency and the ready availability of my contact information online,” he said.

Then there’s the confidence that comes with being the kind of person who can write six-figure checks.

Jim H. Pugh Jr., a DNC donor and longtime Clinton supporter, said he’s confident thieves couldn’t get very far trying to use his information.

“I’m a pretty high-profile person in Florida,” Pugh said, “so I don’t think much would happen that people wouldn’t notice."