Israel Embassy Shooting Suspect Donated to Joe Biden, Records Indicate

Newsweek

22-05-2025

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old who police believe was responsible for the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees by a Jewish museum in Washington D.C., appears to have made a donation to President Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.
On Wednesday evening Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, identified as Israeli embassy employees by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, were shot dead at the Washington D.C. Capital Jewish Museum.
Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith identified the suspect as Rodriguez. She said he had been taking into custody at the museum after the shooting and chanted "free Palestine."
An individual named Elias Rodriguez donated $500 to the 'Biden for President' campaign committee on March 11, 2020, according to a Federal Election Commission filing.
The individual gave their address as 3132 N Kimball Ave., which is in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood.
This is the same neighborhood that an 'Elias Rodriguez' lived in, according to his profile on the website of the HistoryMakers, a nonprofit that says it is committed to "preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans."
On Thursday morning the Rodriguez account on the HistoryMakers website was removed.
A man, standing behind police tape, talks on his cellphone outside the Capital Jewish Museum following a shooting that left two people dead, in Washington, DC, in the early hours of May 22, 2025.
A man, standing behind police tape, talks on his cellphone outside the Capital Jewish Museum following a shooting that left two people dead, in Washington, DC, in the early hours of May 22, 2025.
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP/GETTY
According to a LinkedIn account, an individual named 'Elias Rodriguez' worked as a "Production and Logistics Coordinator & Oral History Researcher" at the HistoryMakers between March 2023 and July 2024.
On the Federal Election Commission form Rodriguez said his employer was CouponCabin, where he worked as a senior content associate. This matches the Rodriguez LinkedIn account, which says they worked as a "Senior Content Associate & Training Coordinator" at CouponCabin between February 2019 and April 2022.
Newsweek has not independently verified that the 'Elias Rodriguez' LinkedIn and HistoryMakers accounts belong to the same individual who carried out the Washington D.C. shooting, though there is a visual resemblance in the photographs of the suspect arrested and the profiles.
CouponCabin is a Chicago founded company which provides online coupon codes to its users.
Newsweek has contacted Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police, the Chicago Police Department, the AOIA and the HistoryMakers for comment on Thursday outside of regular office hours via telephone, email and online inquiry form.
Speaking to WAGA-TV one eyewitness said they saw the suspect being arrested inside the museum after the shooting.
They said: "The security guard happened to let this guy in. I guess they were thinking and he was covered in rain, he was clearly in trauma, he was in shock, and some of the people in the event brought him water, they sat him down. 'Are you O. K.? Were you shot? What happened?' He's like, 'Somebody call the cops.'
"So about 10 minutes later when the cops actually came in he said, 'I did this,' he said, 'Sir I'm unarmed,' he put his hands up he grabbed a red kaffiyeh out of his pocket and started the free Palestine chants. You know, 'there's only one solution, intifada revolution' and he was being dragged out of the building as he was yelling 'free Palestine'."