House Republican leaders are demanding Democrat-aligned fundraising platform ActBlue forfeit records related to its “fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention” — including fraud potentially committed by foreign nationals. The move comes after a bombshell report indicated ActBlue likely lied to Congress about the issue.
In their Tuesday letter to ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, House Committee Chairs Bryan Steil (Administration), Jim Jordan (Judiciary), and James Comer (Oversight) demanded the organization hand over all documents and communications related to “potential or actual use” of ActBlue by foreign nationals to make financial contributions to U.S. political campaigns, as well as records regarding ActBlue’s practices to prevent foreign donations. Federal law strictly prohibits foreign nationals from donating to U.S. election campaigns.
“The Committee on House Administration, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform … are charged with upholding fundamental American civil liberties and protecting the integrity of American elections,” the letter reads.
The chairmen noted their committees’ past oversight of ActBlue’s “‘fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention,’ which allows bad actors — including foreign nationals — to make large-scale fraudulent donations on Democrats’ top fundraising platform.” They also highlighted a recent New York Times report on the organization, which they argued “strongly suggests that ActBlue deliberately obstructed the Committees’ investigation, including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”
As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman described, the Times report included communications from ActBlue’s former law firm indicating that the fraud-prevention policies — including those supposedly aimed at preventing foreign donations that Wallace-Jones detailed in her past communications to Congress “were not always followed.” The outlet cited memos the law firm sent to ActBlue, which reportedly suggested that “donors who used Apple Pay, PayPal or Venmo were not asked to provide their passport information.”
The firm “warned there was ‘a substantial risk that some of the funds received were impermissible contributions from foreign nationals,'” wrote Lyman, who later noted how the firm’s communications to the platform “reportedly triggered panic at ‘the highest levels of ActBlue.'”
The committee chairmen argued in their letter to Wallace-Jones that the Times’ recent reporting also “makes clear that ActBlue withheld materials responsive” to their committees’ previous subpoenas requesting information about company resignations, alleged whistleblower, retaliation, and alleged misconduct by its staff. They further contended that they “have no basis” to assess ActBlue’s privilege claims over such information because it “also failed to comply with the subpoena’s requirement that it produce a log of responsive documents that it deemed privileged.”
“Given ActBlue’s demonstrated history of misleading Congress, there is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter reads. “Therefore, it is imperative that ActBlue promptly produce all materials responsive to the Committees’ subpoenas … Absent these steps, the Committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas.”
The chairmen demanded that Wallace-Jones produce any and all records from January 2020 onward “referring or relating to the potential or actual use of ActBlue by foreign nationals to make political contributions,” as well as those pertaining to the platform’s practices and procedures for “preventing, deterring, or detecting political contributions by foreign nationals.” They have requested that ActBlue comply with their subpoenas and turn over such information no later than 5 p.m. on April 28.
