Dem fundraiser accused of fraud cover-up

Congressional Republicans say ActBlue, a major Democratic fundraising platform, covered up fraudulent donations and lied to Congress about its security standards.

ActBlue weakened fraud checks in 2024

The company deliberately took a more lenient approach to fraud prevention, weakening policies at least twice despite knowing it would increase fraudulent contributions.

“decided to take 'a more lenient approach' to fraud prevention in 2024”

Staff told to accept donations, not scrutinize

Internal trainings directed the fraud prevention team to look for reasons to accept contributions rather than examine them closely for fraud indicators, violating federal regulations.

“'look for reasons to accept contributions' rather than to examine them closely”

Platform detected 22 fraud campaigns

ActBlue had identified at least 22 significant fraud campaigns in recent years, including several from foreign sources, yet continued the lenient approach.

Passport verification was essentially fake

CEO Regina Wallace-Jones told Congress that foreign donations required passport verification, but Republicans say the system only checked character count, not validity.

Supervisors approved flagged donations

Internal memos show ActBlue supervisors approved donations with obvious red flags, including one from someone with a Hong Kong IP address and another flagged as foreign.

“Donor sometimes has an IP in Hong Kong, but none of their other signals raise any eyebrows”

Leaders invoked Fifth Amendment rights

Multiple ActBlue leaders who appeared before Congress refused to testify, invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions about the allegations.

ActBlue denies wrongdoing, calls it political

ActBlue says the investigation is a political stunt and claims a third-party forensic analysis undermined the GOP's central claims against the platform.

“There's nothing to see here. After we released findings of a third-party forensic analysis that completely undermined a central claim that they have made”