Congressional Report Raises Concerns Over ActBlue’s Fundraising Practices
A recent congressional report sheds light on ActBlue, a significant player in Democratic fundraising, suggesting that the platform might have inadvertently funneled foreign money into U.S. elections.
During a congressional hearing, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones allegedly misled lawmakers by asserting that the platform was secure. According to the report released by the House Administration Committee, House Judiciary Committee, and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, when legal concerns were raised regarding potential illegal activities, Wallace-Jones and other leaders at ActBlue reportedly retaliated against the attorneys who voiced these issues.
As of Thursday, a tally on the ActBlue website indicates that the platform has raised close to $20 billion. However, the origins of a significant portion of this money, particularly any foreign contributions, remain unclear, as highlighted by recent findings.
The committees argue that foreign entities could exploit the weaknesses in ActBlue’s verification procedures to bypass regulations. Their investigation commenced in October 2023 after it was noted that ActBlue does not require donors to provide a card verification value (CVV). The potential for the platform to serve as a conduit for foreign funds was first flagged in October 2024.
When a donor lists an address outside the United States, a prompt requests a passport number. However, the investigation revealed that a valid passport isn’t necessary, as a foreign donor could simply generate a random number that fits the required digit format.
Internal reviews of risky donations between 2022 and 2024 suggested that ActBlue management sometimes directed employees to accept donations even from individuals with foreign IP addresses. A specific case involved a contributor from Hong Kong, where supervisors noted that “they are all consistently in the same place,” per the internal documents.
Additionally, the committee reported that fraud prevention analysts were instructed to “give the donor the benefit of the doubt,” leading to the acceptance of many risky contributions.
Whether individuals using services like Apple Pay, PayPal, or Venmo were required to provide a passport number remains uncertain.
ActBlue responded to the report by characterizing it as a politically motivated attack aimed at undermining the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms. They stated, “There’s nothing to see here,” asserting that their findings from an independent forensic analysis countered Republican claims against them. The platform accused Republicans of orchestrating a political stunt rather than engaging in meaningful legislative work.
By February 2025, tensions within ActBlue reached a boiling point, evident from internal Slack messages disclosed to congressional investigators. Following the exit of most of the legal team, the last in-house attorney reported instances of illegal retaliation, only to have his messages deleted by a senior employee.
At that time, ActBlue had retained the law firm Covington & Burling but ended their relationship the following month after external counsel voiced similar legal concerns. The situation escalated when the New York Times published an investigation into the turmoil, prompting ActBlue to attack its own lawyers, labeling their counsel as nearly malpractice, which Covington & Burling categorically denied.
In June, Wallace-Jones was summoned to testify before the committee but chose to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights during questioning.
The company subsequently hired a new law firm, WilmerHale, which conducted its own examination of ActBlue’s donor verification and asserted that foreign donations are “vanishingly rare.” They reported that in 2023, 93% of contributions from foreign addresses required passport information at the time of donation. However, the report did not refute the committee’s assertion that these passport numbers weren’t checked against any governmental database.
In a March 2025 executive order, the Trump administration sought to restrict the firm from federal contracts, alleging it engaged in a discriminatory diversity policy and liberal advocacy. WilmerHale had previously employed Robert S. Mueller, who led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
Concerns regarding potential perjury stem from a letter Wallace-Jones sent to the committee in 2023, where she claimed ActBlue employed a thorough process to identify and eliminate foreign contributions. She stated, “Only donations with passport information are processed.” However, the committee later discovered that the only validation for these numbers involved checking that they contained the correct number of digits.
According to reports, Covington & Burling had previously indicated that the vetting steps mentioned in Wallace-Jones’ letter were not consistently adhered to.
