Amid Chaos At ActBlue, House Republicans Seek Answers About ‘Potentially Fraudulent And Illicit Financial Activity’
Republican congressmen are seeking answers about “potentially fraudulent and illicit financial activity” through the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue. Meanwhile, top officials are fleeing the company.
Republicans Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Rep. James Comer, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Nick Langworthy wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on March 10, seeking information about suspicious activity through ActBlue.
“The Committees remain concerned with recent reports suggesting fraud and evasion of campaign finance law by individuals exploiting online contribution platforms, especially ActBlue,” they wrote in the letter to Bessent.
The congressmen requested all “Suspicious Activity Reports,” “filed or relating to transactions” since Jan. 1, 2023, containing the term “ActBlue,” “which relate to money laundering, counterfeit credit/debit card, credit card or debit card fraud, false statements, wire transfer fraud, or identity theft.”
ActBlue is currently fraught with “internal chaos,” according to The New York Times. The platform’s “senior staff” began resigning in late February, with seven top officials leaving the platform and “a remaining lawyer suggesting he faced internal retaliation.”
Steil said in a statement to The Federalist that he is “committed to making our elections more secure.”
“Our investigation into ActBlue has revealed that there have been weaknesses in our online campaign finance systems, and we need to implement key safeguards,” Steil said. “I’m eager to review the Suspicious Activity Reports from the Treasury Department soon.”
Steil, Comer, and Langworthy said in the letter that it is “crucial” to review the documents soon to “determine whether legislation is needed” to uphold campaign finance laws and “guard against illicit foreign influence or other illegal activities in U.S. elections.”
Potential Fraud and Interference
The Committee on House Administration and Committee on Oversight and Government Reform initially sought answers during the previous Congress, but former President Joe Biden’s Treasury stalled in complying, according to the letter.
“Although the Biden Administration initially stalled the Committees’ requests in its entirety for months, on January 2, 2025, Treasury allowed the Committees to review only limited documents,” the letter reads. “We write to request Treasury, in its commitment to transparency and cooperation, provide both Committees with the remaining records relevant to our investigations.”
ActBlue only began requiring safeguards such as a card verification value, or CVV, following heightened scrutiny late last year. These are “standard procedures to guard against identity theft and fraud,” according to the letter.
The attorneys general of 19 states have launched investigations into ActBlue. Steil sent letters to the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia in September, updating them on the committee’s investigation into ActBlue and providing them with data and evidence.
“The organization is also the subject of several state-level investigations stemming from allegedly fraudulent contributions made via the platform without the reported contributors’ awareness — serious allegations that, if proven true, would violate federal law,” the congressmen wrote in their letter to Bessent.
In addition to congressional investigation, ActBlue faces a wave of departures among its top officials. ActBlue’s chief revenue officer, associate general counsel (its top legal officer), “customer service and partnerships directors,” assistant research director, an engineer who helped develop “the electronic pipes through which the group’s donations flow,” and a human resources official left the group beginning on Feb. 21. Meanwhile, a remaining lawyer advised staff that his access to email and internal platforms had been cut off — and reminded his coworkers that “we have Anti-Retaliation and Whistleblower Policies for a reason.”
Congressional Republicans have been investigating ActBlue for months. As The Federalist previously reported, Steil subpoenaed ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones in October, demanding “documents and communications related to ActBlue’s donor verification policies and the potential for foreign actors, primarily from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China, to use ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.”
After Biden was forced out of his bid for reelection in July 2024, then-Vice President Kamala Harris raked in record-breaking hundreds of millions of dollars through ActBlue — more than $80 million in the first 24 hours and $310 million that month, The Federalist reported at the time.
This drew attention to ActBlue’s fundraising practices and raised alarms about potential “smurfing” — a criminal practice that consists of dividing large transactions into smaller ones to avoid legal reporting requirements, obscuring the identity of the donor. As The Federalist reported, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has been calling attention to “smurfing” through ActBlue for years, pointing out foreign actors could use the system to influence American elections under the radar.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called for wider investigations of ActBlue in December. “ActBlue was accepting foreign gift cards until September. This is ILLEGAL,” he posted to X.
At the time, Steil said that “there is still more work to be done to ensure our campaign finance system is fully protected from fraud and unlawful foreign interference.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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