The Democratic Party’s premier fundraising machine is facing an uncertain future amid investigations, staff departures, and political headwinds. ActBlue stands accused by Republicans of illegally collecting money for Democrats during the 2024 election by using deceptive methods. But its brushes with controversy go back further than the last cycle. And its next chapter could be consequential for a Democratic Party that is out of power and directionless. Part 1 of this Washington Examiner series will look at what accusations ActBlue is facing.
Republicans in Washington and in states across the nation have accused Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue of a wide range of wrongdoing, from foreign money laundering to financing terrorism.
Some accusations have developed into full-blown congressional inquiries, though the strength of supporting evidence varies from claim to claim. Since the reported departures late last month of ActBlue’s senior staff, scrutiny has continued to build.
What is ActBlue?
ActBlue is a not-for-profit payment processor used by Democratic political campaigns at all levels of government and left-of-center activist groups to handle online contributions. The platform plays a vital role in the liberal financial ecosystem, having processed well over $16 billion in donations since its founding in 2004.
The liberal payment processing juggernaut, however, has been thrown into disarray. The New York Times reported on March 5 that at least seven senior staffers resigned in late February, including its top legal officer. The reason for the exodus is not yet known.
Zain Ahmad, who was the last remaining lawyer in ActBlue’s general counsel’s office before going on leave, wrote a cryptic message in a work Slack channel informing employees that “we have Anti-Retaliation and Whistleblower Policies for a reason.”
While the cause of the mysterious resignations and internal chaos remains unknown, they come as Republicans have launched a multipronged campaign against ActBlue.
‘Used to skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws’
In 2023, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) raised concerns over the fact that ActBlue was not requiring donors to input credit verification value, the three numbers on the back of credit cards, which they claimed increased the risk of fraudulent contributions.
The idea was that bad actors could purchase Visa gift cards, which lack traceable or identifiable information, and use them to make donations under false names to get around campaign finance limitations. Critics speculated that such a workaround could be used to funnel foreign dollars into American elections or to circumvent donation limits to campaigns by allowing one person to make multiple donations under different aliases.
ActBlue acted relatively quickly to patch the matter up, adding a box to its donations page requiring a CVV input. There was one problem, however.
People could still make donations through PayPal, Google Pay, or Venmo accounts — and prepaid gift cards, as well as other forms of untraceable funds, could be uploaded to those platforms. Steil and his congressional allies proposed the Secure Handling of Internet Electronic Donations Act in September 2024, which addressed this apparent loophole.
Steil wasn’t alone in his push. Nineteen Republican attorneys general penned a letter in late 2024 to ActBlue demanding information about the payment processor’s security protocols. The Republican attorneys general of Virginia and Texas both opened investigations into whether bad actors were exploiting ActBlue’s CVV requirements to make fraudulent donations.
In September 2024, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee sent a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting copies of financial suspicious activity reports related to ActBlue. After silence from the Biden administration, the committee renewed its request by sending a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week.
As evidence of their allegations, Republicans have pointed to large numbers of small donations made in the names of elderly people through ActBlue that, if summed up, amount to huge numbers, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases.
Critics of the Republican inquiries argue that federal requirements mandating reporting donations multiple times, the poor mental acuity of elderly donors, and repeat donation schemes are more likely than fraud to explain those observations. Some elderly donors who have had large quantities of cash donated to Democrats in their name, however, dispute that they have donated as much or as frequently as federal records suggest.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), in the controversy’s most recent development, on Thursday requested that the FBI open an investigation into ActBlue over concerns that it has “been used to skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws.”
‘Payment processing for terror-linked organizations and nonprofits’
On Tuesday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) urged the Treasury Department to investigate “credible allegations” that ActBlue is allowing “terror-linked organizations” to use its platform for fundraising.
The letter, reported by the Free Press, cited Washington Examiner reports that found that ActBlue has processed donations for the Alliance for Global Justice, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, three groups that have been accused of having links to Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Alliance for Global Justice served as the fiscal sponsor for Samidoun, an organization the Israeli government designated as a terrorist organization in 2021 over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, meanwhile, was a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee — a coalition affiliated with entities the United States has designated as terrorist organizations such as Hamas. USPCR, similarly, faced a lawsuit from the Jewish National Fund after it was found to have raised money for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee.
ActBlue’s links to such groups may go even deeper than Issa’s letter suggests.
The Arab Resource and Organizing Center and USPCR helped organize the People’s Conference for Palestine in May 2024, a conference endorsed by Salah Salah, a founding member of the PFLP, while soliciting funds through ActBlue.
The U.S. designated the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. The Palestinian group has hijacked planes, carried out suicide attacks, besieged synagogues, and bombed civilians, among other violent acts, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Al Quds Open University, which lauded Hamas militants as “righteous martyrs” following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, also endorsed the event.
AROC also staged a joint protest with the Seattle chapter of Samidoun, the Israeli-designated terrorist organization, to blockade a key U.S. port in the hopes of cutting off American aid to Israel in November 2023. Community Justice Exchange, which bailed out protesters involved in anti-Israel and at times pro-Hamas protests, also raised money through ActBlue.
Issa isn’t the first to attack ActBlue over its links to radical Palestinian groups.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) called on ActBlue in December 2023 to stop processing donations for groups with Hamas sympathies after a Daily Caller News Foundation report found that the payment processor was working with organizations that had praised Hamas’s attacks, which left roughly 1,200 people dead.
“It’s shocking that Democrats’ primary fundraising vehicle is helping bankroll antisemitic protests across the country where Hamas terrorists are honored as martyrs,” Daines told Fox News Digital.
Even earlier, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) sent letters to Yellen and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in early 2021 requesting an investigation into ActBlue over its fundraising for groups linked to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee, the coalition including terrorist organizations.
‘Coordinated acts of vandalism’
“An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla ‘protests,’” Elon Musk wrote on March 8. The billionaire electric vehicle mogul-turned-top White House adviser was referring to a string of demonstrations protesting his role in the Trump administration in which some people had been arrested on infractions such as disorderly conduct and vandalism. The protests were promoted by groups that fundraise through ActBlue.
On Wednesday, eight Republican representatives wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel requesting an investigation into ActBlue’s relationship to the anti-Musk protests, which the members of Congress claim involved “coordinated acts of vandalism.”
While no conclusive proof has emerged suggesting that ActBlue-funded groups directly engaged in illegal behavior at the anti-Musk demonstrations, organizations that fundraise using the platform have a long history of organizing protests that have run afoul of the law.
FOREIGN-FUNDED DARK MONEY ORG PUMPED MILLIONS INTO LEFT-WING GROUPS DURING 2024 ELECTIONS
Historically, ActBlue has processed donations for groups that participated in violent protests during the George Floyd riots, handled payment processing for bail funds that released violent offenders onto the streets, and provided the financial infrastructure to keep pro-Palestinian campus protests going as they illegally occupied quadrangles and campus buildings.
ActBlue did not respond to a request for comment.
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