President Donald Trump will order his administration on Thursday to probe ActBlue, a major Democrat fundraising platform, for potential violations of federal law.
Trump is expected to sign a memorandum on Thursday instructing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate ActBlue for potentially allowing foreign “straw donors” to pump cash into U.S. elections via the fundraising platform, according to a fact sheet outlining the memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Various media reports and congressional investigations have unearthed indications that ActBlue may have engaged in “potential criminal activity,” according to House Republicans, and the organization has reportedly been in disarray in recent months.
Top Republican Calls For Dem’s ActBlue To Stop Processing Donations For Hamas Sympathizers Following DCNF Reporthttps://t.co/ZglnLOHeJK
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“The Memorandum directs the Attorney General to investigate and take appropriate action concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to U.S. political candidates and committees, all of which break the law,” the fact sheet states. “Specifically, the Memorandum notes that a congressional investigation revealed significant fraud schemes using ActBlue and, over a 30-day period during the 2024 election cycle, hundreds of ActBlue donations from foreign IP addresses using prepaid cards, despite it being illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to U.S. elections. It instructs the Attorney General to report the results of the investigation to the President, through the Counsel to the President.”
The fact sheet further describes ActBlue as “notorious for its lax standards” and emphasizes that the forthcoming crackdown on the fundraising platform is intended to enforce election integrity and security in the U.S.
House Republicans published a report summarizing the findings of their investigations into ActBlue earlier in April. That report found that ActBlue made their standards less stringent on two occasions in 2024, and that the platform has detected in recent years at least 22 potential “fraud campaigns,” nine of which had a “foreign nexus.”
Specifically, congressional investigators found that ActBlue changed its policies in September 2024 to essentially flag only the most suspicious donations instead of all suspicious donations. Additionally, the organization moved in April 2024 to increase its threshold for triggering an automatic fraud review, thereby making its standards more lenient across the board.
“Internal documents produced to the Committees show that ActBlue policy changes have made it easier for bad actors to fraudulently donate to Democrat campaigns and causes,” the House report states. “ActBlue weakened its fraud-prevention rules twice in 2024, even after internal assessments confirmed that these policy changes would lead to more fraudulent donations. While ActBlue boasts about its recent changes requiring (card security codes) and banning certain donations made using gift cards and prepaid cards, internal documents confirm that these rule changes were carefully calibrated to minimize the effects on ActBlue’s donation volume and reputation.”
Moreover, The New York Times reported in March that at least seven senior ActBlue employees left the organization in February for reasons that were not clear. The senior staff exodus raised concerns of unions representing ActBlue employees, with the groups writing to leadership to express concern that the departures “[eroded] our confidence in the stability of the organization.”
ActBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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