Charles Johnson’s 15 minutes of infamy may not have run their course.
Johnson, the billionaire co-owner of the Giants, was criticized when it came to light last month that he and his wife each donated $2,700 to the campaign of Mississippi Republican Senatorial candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith — who joked about public hangings and posed holding and wearing Confederate artifacts.
That revelation came on the heels of news that Johnson had donated $1,000 to a super PAC that aired a racist radio ad in Arkansas. It was enough that some critics — Dr. Harry Edwards and civil rights attorney John Burris among them — called for a boycott of the Giants. Johnson, through his attorney, said he was unaware his contributions would be used in such a manner and had requested a refund of his donations.
Johnson’s explanation, and a subsequent phone conversation, was sufficient enough for Burris to proclaim that the boycott was “not further warranted.”
Burris judged Johnson “a man of integrity. … I walked away thinking this is a pretty decent fellow,” he said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
A Chronicle profile described Johnson as a private man and “a longtime football lover who has come to own 26 percent of a major-league baseball team” and who “has given far more money to charitable causes and his alma mater than he has to political causes.”
But in a Twitter thread posted Tuesday, East Bay Express staff writer Darwin BondGraham highlighted several donations that he asserts Johnson has made to politicians with exclusionary views and anti-LGBTQ leanings, and that constitute a pattern. Starting with:
Johnson has also given thousands $ to Rick Santorum over the years.
Need I even describe Santorum's long record as a senator and in other roles attacking LGBTQ communities?— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) December 4, 2018
Followed by:
Johnson has contributed $ to James Inhofe's campaigns.
As a U.S. Senator, Inhofe has a long record of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and votes. pic.twitter.com/Oxgt0uWy7t— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) December 4, 2018
2014, Johnson contributed $2,600 to Bill Cassidy's campaign for U.S. Senate.
Cassidy was a co-sponsor of the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act, which would legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination. He opposes same-sex marriage rights.— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) December 4, 2018
This year, Johnson gave $2,700 to Greg Gianforte's campaign for a House seat.
Gianforte lobbied against a Bozeman city anti-discrimination law to protect LGBTQ people.
He's given over $1 million to groups that are anti-LGBTQ, including some that peddle conversion "therapy."— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) December 4, 2018
In all, BondGraham cites 13 politicians (including one-time presidential candidate Michele Bachmann) and one PAC among Johnson’s political benefactors.
“All of which is to say that Johnson’s recent campaign contributions to a candidate who joked about attending a lynching, and to a PAC that ran racist ads in Arkansas, is contextualized in a long history of his giving to anti-LGBTQ politicians,” BondGraham wrote.
