Is ActBlue in Legal Peril?

Since its inception in 2004, the powerhouse Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue has made its mark on the American political system. Just last year, it was responsible for Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign raising almost $47 million in the campaign’s first few hours.

While ActBlue achieved some major successes in the 2024 election cycle, the influential left-of-center platform faced major scrutiny from government investigators in the months leading up to last year’s election. A new report from the House of Representatives’ House Administration Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Oversight Committee suggests that ActBlue’s legal troubles may be just beginning.

Last fall, it emerged that ActBlue, because of its lax donor verification standards, may have allowed illegal donations to political campaigns to come through its platform. This included the alleged laundering of donations through the illegal use of gift cards and prepaid credit cards. Congressional investigators also uncovered anomalies in ActBlue donations, such as donations being made in amounts the donor couldn’t afford and unusually frequent donations being made by elderly Americans. A Republican political operative was even the victim of a scam that used ActBlue to make donations to left-leaning candidates and causes in the operative’s name.

Reports of alleged chicanery at ActBlue caused officials from state capitals to Capitol Hill to begin investigating the online fundraising powerhouse. Attorneys general from a number of states began their own investigations into ActBlue’s operations, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton even demanded that the Federal Election Commission require that the small donor platform improve its contributor verification practices.

Congress also began looking into ActBlue’s operations. In the course of Congress’s investigation, the chairman of the House Administration Committee suggested that hostile foreign powers like Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela may have used ActBlue to make contributions to U.S. political campaigns.

Since the 2024 election, ActBlue appears to have been plagued with internal turmoil, including unprecedent staff departures of attorneys and longtime ActBlue employees.

When stories emerged last fall about ActBlue’s potential problems, Joe Biden, a longtime recipient of ActBlue’s financial assistance, was still at the head of the executive branch. His Vice President, Kamala Harris, was one of the two leading candidates for president; she was also, as noted earlier, a beneficiary of ActBlue money. You don’t need a Ph.D. in political science to realize that the Biden-Harris Administration wasn’t likely to investigate ActBlue’s fundraising practices at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign.

But with the release of the new congressional report into ActBlue, it looks as if ActBlue’s legal troubles may have just begun. The report highlights that ActBlue actually weakened its anti-fraud safeguards in 2024. What’s more disturbing is that according to the congressional report, ActBlue attempted to hide the fact that anti-fraud measures were relaxed. The report shows that ActBlue, one of the nation’s major players in online political fundraising, is simply not taking the necessary steps to stop fraudulent and illegal political contributions from being made over its platform.

Congressional leaders appear to be turning up the heat on ActBlue. On top of the release of the joint committee report, one House member last month formally requested that new Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel investigate ActBlue. Another House member recently asked the Treasury Department to look into allegations that ActBlue allowed terrorist groups to use its platform.

The Biden Administration is gone, and the executive branch of the federal government is under new management. If the new administration is serious about looking into ActBlue’s alleged misdeeds, the online fundraising behemoth’s legal troubles are likely far from over.