The Democratic Party’s main digital fundraising platform, ActBlue, is once again the focus of attention from Republican lawmakers, who have some questions about the site’s shady operating practices.
As RedState reported back in October, ActBlue’s questionable activities were not only reported by the House Committee on Administration and its Republican chairman, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), but were also the subject of a letter signed by nineteen state attorneys general Letter General for aiding and abetting a money laundering scheme known as “smurfing.”
Smurfing is defineD as “a money laundering technique in which large amounts of cash are divided into several small transactions.”
And if that wasn’t bad enough, ActBlue has now informed Congress that donations from foreign organizations using gift cards were not blocked until September of this year. This raises the question of whether countries such as China, Russia, Venezuela or Iran may have funneled money into the Democratic Party’s campaign coffers to influence the outcome of the presidential race.
In documents submitted to Congress under a subpoena, ActBlue Claims By September 9th, they had closed every loophole in their system that allowed foreign gift cards to be accepted. This came three days after Rep. Steil introduced the Secure Handling of Internet Electronic Donations (SHIELD) Act, which is intended to ensure that foreign funds, particularly from countries sanctioned by the United States, cannot be processed through online donations.
The fact that ActBlue is spitting out the documents is a good sign. after Too steep, but doesn’t go far enough.
“While this is positive progress, more needs to be done to ensure our campaign finance system is fully protected from fraud and unlawful foreign interference,” Steil told Just the News. “Documents submitted to the committee also confirm this.” ActBlue continued to accept these payment methods in July, when Democrats raised a record amount of campaign funds before implementing these protections.”
In a tweet that had over 22 million views Wednesday night, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson declared ActBlue’s activities “ILLEGAL” and promised further investigation into the matter.
Breaking news: ActBlue accepted foreign gift cards until September.
This is ILLEGAL.
The @HouseAdmin The Committee will continue this crucial investigation into ActBlue in the next Congress.
Our work here is just beginning. https://t.co/ffDc5I7j4H
– Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) December 11, 2024
However, there are some questions about whether ActBlue actually stopped accepting these foreign donations in September. An intrepid researcher says maybe not, presenting evidence that he successfully sent a donation to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) in October using a foreign gift card.
🚨 In response to a subpoena, ActBlue apparently told Congress that they would no longer accept donations using prepaid gift cards in September 2024.
This CANNOT be true! Below you can see that I donated using a prepaid gift card that I purchased with cash in November👇🏻
Deed @actblue Lie? https://t.co/DGl4Qfppet pic.twitter.com/sdlJVGYXfC
— Parker Thayer (@ParkerThayer) December 11, 2024
Here is the gift card I used and the receipt from ActBlue showing that I used it to donate on 10/23/2024, well after September. pic.twitter.com/nd5OpLYJto
— Parker Thayer (@ParkerThayer) December 11, 2024
So the question is: Did ActBlue knowingly continue to accept foreign donations even after the SHIELD Act was introduced in Congress? And what about the documents they submitted as part of a subpoena? Do they show that the platform that has raised billions of dollars for Democrats and left-wing causes is playing by the rules? Or did ActBlue lie to Congress?
Here’s another question: Did they reverse these fraudulent transactions? After all, the Democratic Party bragged about how much money it raised for Kamala Harris’ failed campaign and is now in trouble for spending so freely. How much of that came from bad actors on the international stage and how much was given back?
Let’s hope Republicans look into this further.
