such behavior began in 2004...i.e. it was not initiated by President Obama, and that claim is officially debunked.
With that said, it is also quite clear that very large amounts of "Dark Money" are being injected into election campaigns, with much of it coming from foreign sources...this is inherently wrong for any democracy and needs to be stopped.
Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20180225112702/https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2017reports/201710054fr.pdf