House GOP not done with ActBlue after bombshell internal memos raise foreign cash questions
FIRST ON FOX: House GOP investigators are warning that they are not done with ActBlue after a bombshell report fueled questions over whether the Democrat fundraising giant is accepting foreign cash and lying to Congress about it.
"Whether it’s allowing fraudsters to steal taxpayer dollars or accepting illegal foreign donations through ActBlue, Democrats have proven themselves to be the party of fraud. Our investigation into ActBlue is far from over. We expect more documents and testimony in the weeks ahead," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital.
ActBlue is a massive platform for campaigns to raise money that's used by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, among others.
Republican lawmakers have long accused the company of having lax verification standards for donors, something ActBlue has said it actively improved since the start of the GOP's probe. But new findings, first reported by Fox News Digital, appear to show employees green-lighting donations despite some questions about where they came from.
But the company maintains it did nothing wrong and signaled in comments to Fox News Digital that it has no plans to return any donations raised in the report.
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Committee on House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital on Friday, "ActBlue’s own admissions raise serious questions about its fraud prevention practices, including a so-called passport verification process that did not actually verify or check entries against any government database. All options are on the table to ensure we get to the bottom of what is going on at ActBlue."
And a spokesperson for Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and the House Judiciary Committee confirmed to Fox News Digital that the panel "will continue aggressive oversight of ActBlue, including additional depositions."
All three committees have been responsible for investigating the left-wing fundraising giant.
It's not clear how much those depositions will yield, however. The Judiciary Committee revealed through a series of transcripts on Thursday that all 10 ActBlue employees and board members who appeared for closed-door depositions invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions.
That includes co-founder Matt DeBergalis, whose invocation was first reported by Fox News Digital.
ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones similarly opted to plead the Fifth during a public hearing.
The GOP report cited a letter by Wallace-Jones to Steil, which maintained that donations on the platform made by people with addresses outside the U.S. required a passport number for verification.
But the Republicans' report alleged that the verification "only ensures that the entered passport number contains a certain number of characters, not that it is a valid U.S. passport number," rendering it an essentially meaningless step.
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The report also included excerpts purporting to show ActBlue supervisors green-lighting donations despite "red flags," including a memo lauding a donation as a "great accept," but noting, "Donor sometimes has an IP in Hong Kong, but none of their other signals raise any eyebrows."
Another communication appears to show an ActBlue supervisor maintaining that a denied contribution "should have been accepted." The rest of the memo stated, "It is a foreign contribution, but the name/email match, the IP/billing match, a full address with the correct country code, and there were previously accepted and successful contributions."
"The donor uses an Arkansas state code, which isn’t great, but [the] system can be wonky with requiring state codes for foreign donors," the rest of the message stated.
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An ActBlue supervisor also allegedly said a contribution "set off a lot of" alarms, but argued the donor should be given the "benefit of the doubt."
Yet another appeared to show an ActBlue employee acknowledging that a donor using a Missouri billing address had "all signs point to this person being from Canada," but that X (then Twitter) was used to confirm their identity.
But despite the GOP's accusations, the report's evidence also appears to show ActBlue employees standing by the platform.
An email from ActBlue employees shows they believe the company to be "the target of bad-faith political attacks at the hands of ill-intentioned operators." ActBlue also previously told the committee "there is no evidence that foreign donations through online or small-dollar contributions are a problem in U.S. elections."
The communications excerpts were included in the report and not independently verified by Fox News Digital.
It's prompted a firestorm on the right, with House Republicans' campaign arm demanding that Democrats return donations made through ActBlue.
"House Democrats cannot claim ignorance while continuing to rely on a fundraising platform facing serious allegations. The [National Republican Congressional Committee] officially calls on every House Democrat to cut ties with ActBlue and return any illegal contributions funneled to their campaigns through the platform," spokesman Mike Marinella said.
But when asked if ActBlue would return any donations, the company pointed Fox News Digital back to its statement on the House GOP report.
"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 against ActBlue, Republicans are refusing to move on," ActBlue said.
"Instead, they are orchestrating another political stunt before rushing out of town weeks early to go campaign. This coordinated campaign against ActBlue isn’t about the facts, or legislating, it’s about Republicans’ efforts to silence organizations they believe threaten their agenda."