(The Center Square) – An ongoing investigation into ActBlue, a fundraising platform for the Democratic Party, continues to uncover instances of lax fraud prevention enforcement, according to Republican lawmakers.
In response to President Donald Trump issuing a memorandum directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate ActBlue, Committee on House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., sent a letter Wednesday to Bondi sharing the members’ findings.
“The oversight has uncovered that ActBlue has weak fraud-prevention practices and overlooks bad actors, including foreign actors, who take advantage of the platform to make illicit political donations,” the letter reads. “ActBlue’s concerning activities may have a direct effect on U.S. political campaigns and elections.”
Republicans have been investigating the platform since October 2023, when Steil launched a probe into the organization’s donor verification methods over concerns that it was allowing foreign and fraudulent contributions to happen on its website.
Accusations of ActBlue violating or skirting federal campaign finance laws included laundering foreign contributions through prepaid gift cards and accepting hundreds of donations for $2.50 from the same individual.
Unlike many other online fundraising platforms, ActBlue did not originally require a CVV number for all donor transactions.
“Although ActBlue has since updated its policies to reject donations without safeguards such as a CVV requirement, the Committees’ oversight found that ActBlue implemented these changes only after ensuring that they would not negatively impact Democrat donations,” the letter continues. “ActBlue’s fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention empowers foreign influence and infiltration while jeopardizing the integrity of U.S. elections.”
As The Center Square reported, ActBlue twice changed its fraud-prevention standards in 2024, instructing employees to "look for reasons to accept contributions," rather than immediately flag suspicious donations.
Some of those contributions included 237 individual donations from foreign IP addresses using domestic prepaid cards during a 30-day period leading up to Election Day.
ActBlue has defended its practices, saying it manually reviews contributions that indicate a foreign country in the address information and uses an external fraud prevention tool on its website.
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