ActBlue CEO Invokes 5th Amendment 22 Times During House Probe Into Democrats' Donor Donation Vetting
Hearing Shows Evidence of Fraud, Money Laundering, and Illegal Foreign Cash Flow
Yesterday, in a stunning display of evasion at an explosive U.S. House Committee Administration hearing, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right, refusing to answer even basic questions about the Democrats’ fundraising giant’s operations. This mirrors the 146 Fifth Amendment pleas by ActBlue employees in prior depositions — a pattern that screams guilt and cover-up.
The left’s dominant small-dollar fundraising platform — which has funneled billions into Democrat campaigns — stands accused of systemic failures in fraud prevention and the acceptance of potentially hundreds of millions in illegal foreign donations. Wallace-Jones’s refusal to defend her organization turned the hearing into a public confession by silence.
This wasn’t transparency; it was a calculated cover-up, desperate to hide systemic vulnerabilities that funnel billions through straw donors and illicit channels.
“Let’s be clear. We’re here because ACTBlue’s legal counsel said Ms. Wallace-Jones lied to Congress, willfully and knowingly misled the Congress of the United States. That’s why we’re here, “ said Chairman Jim Jordan, reminding all that by March 2025, every member of ActBlue’s legal and compliance team resigned, was fired, or went on leave, dismantling Democrat claims that the investigation into ActBlue was mere political theater.
Wallace-Jones invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 22 times, including in response to Jordan’s piercing questions:
How much fraud is too much fraud?
How many foreign contributions did ActBlue accept?
How much money from Russia?
Why did your entire in-house legal team quit?
Did they leave because fraud standards were reduced to help Democrats?
We know D.C.-based law firm Covington and Burling warned ActBlue’s leadership in a pair of 2025 memos that ActBlue did not ask for any verification information from donors who paid through third-party apps such as Apple Pay & PayPal. The New York Times reported Covington warned ActBlue in its memos that the oversights present “substantial risk” to the fundraising platform, which facilitates online contributions for the vast majority of leftist politicians, PACs, and nonprofits across the country.
Follow the money - the truth is in the trail. It’s very clear that ActBlue is a money-laundering organization for foreign donations to Democrat campaigns.
Yesterday’s hearing laid bare how ActBlue failed to implement basic fraud safeguards while accepting millions in prohibited foreign cash. By hiding behind deafening silence rather than answering straightforward questions about compliance, straw donors, and overseas IP addresses linked to suspicious donations, ActBlue has effectively admitted the platform’s role to facilitate illicit funds into American elections.
This hearing exposes ActBlue not as a grassroots powerhouse but as a conduit awash in illegal foreign money and straw-donor schemes. By stonewalling Congress, Wallace-Jones and her team have effectively admitted the jig is up: lowered compliance thresholds weren’t about inclusion—they were about flooding campaigns with untraceable cash to help Democrats.
Republicans are right to demand accountability; Americans deserve to know how much of the left’s electoral war chest came from compromised sources. Until ActBlue comes clean, every dollar it raises remains tainted by suspicion, eroding trust in the very system it claims to champion. The Fifth Amendment shields the guilty here, not the innocent.
House Democrats countered by accusing Republicans of engaging in a partisan witch hunt. House Republicans dismissed Democrats’ counterattacks and pledged to continue with their probe. Republicans are exposing that when the #1 Dem fundraising powerhouse stonewalls Congress on foreign interference and fraud, trust in the entire system collapses. Accountability is way overdue.
Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Administration committee, said there was “significant concern that ActBlue may have allowed foreign donations on their platform, lied to Congress, and withheld responsive documents from a congressional subpoena. This is about getting the answers.”
“I’m disappointed with the result today, that she chose not to answer questions. I think this was an opportunity to set the record straight,” Steil said. “I remain optimistic that people want to come forward and come clean with the American people about what is actually taking place at ActBlue, we’re going to continue our investigation.”
Compounding the controversy are longstanding, well-documented cases of widespread straw-donor and “smurfing” tactics on the platform, as reported on the fec.gov website. Straw donors involve one person (or entity) illegally contributing in the name of another, while “smurfing” refers to breaking large, potentially illegal donations (including from foreign sources) into many tiny amounts that appear as grassroots small-dollar gifts.
In 2021, news reports raised legal and ethical concerns about ActBlue’s fundraising tactics, including ‘lying’ to donors en route to racking up nearly $150M in ‘tips.’
In 2021, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined ActBlue for funneling $44,000 in illegal contributions during the 2020 election cycle.
In Dec 2022, a team of researchers found that WASHINGTON STATE had a massive network of “Campaign Finance Mule” donors making thousands of small $ donations to Raphael Warnock in Georgia, other nationwide Democrat Candidates, and Progressive PAC’s that had been intentionally set up via ActBlue. It was also discovered that there were massive numbers of Democrat donors making donations at a rate that defied all logic and reason!
Oral, written, and video documented reports in AZ, CA, FL, NY, MD, MI, TX, WI, IL, and several other states indicate that many of these donors appear to be innocent victims of the scam, and their testimonials show that they are NOT making or authorizing these donations. This appears to be a highly coordinated and organized Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) operation operating across state lines.
The evidence is overwhelming and reveals how vast and deep the criminal cartel has infiltrated into the business of illegally influencing U.S. elections!
Last year, the House Judiciary Committee, the Committee on House Administration, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a joint interim staff report titled”Fraud on ActBlue: How the Democrats’ Top Fundraising Platform Opens the Door for Illegal Election Contributions.” ActBlue made its fraud-prevention rules “more lenient” twice in 2024—even though there is extensive fraud on the platform, including from foreign sources.
Congressman Eric Burlison, who serves on the committee, said, “ActBlue had really pulled back on some of the security measures on the website, which would have enabled foreign actors to inject contributions under the names of other people.”
Internal documents show that ActBlue executives and staff were aware that both foreign and domestic fraudsters were exploiting the platform, yet they attempted to hide their changes to avoid sparking discussions about fraud.
For example, ActBlue’s own training guide for new fraud-prevention employees instructed them to “look for reasons to accept contributions,” rather than err on the side of flagging suspicious donations.
Internal communications further reveal that, rather than seeking to reduce or eliminate fraud, ActBlue’s chief fraud-prevention official was willing to accept 10% more fraud in order to focus on DEI. Additionally, during a 30-day window in September and October 2024, ActBlue detected 237 separate donations made from foreign IP addresses using domestic prepaid cards.
In late February 2025, at least seven senior officials resigned from ActBlue, including the associate general counsel (the highest-ranking legal officer), the chief revenue officer, the customer service director, the partnerships director, the assistant research director, a human resources official, and a senior engineer with 16 years at the organization.
The ongoing revelations have Democrats associated with ActBlue in a state of panic as more evidence of unlawful straw-donor and foreign contribution schemes through online fundraising tools is exposed. Multiple senior resignations at ActBlue and congressional summons are just the beginning.
Also, AG Todd Blanche and the DOJ are actively investigating ActBlue, saying, “That’s a priority of this admin and DOJ. People have been worried about it for a VERY long time. Rest assured, it includes the DOJ, and it includes me.” OF NOTE:
Since its founding in 2004, ActBlue has processed over $19 billion in total contributions for Democrat campaigns and organizations.
In the 2024 election cycle alone, it raised more than $3.8 billion.
Even in the “off-year” 2025 cycle, ActBlue shattered records by raising nearly $1.8 billion from small-dollar donors.
ActBlue serves as the primary platform for thousands of Democrat campaigns at every level (federal, state, and local), the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, and progressive groups.
The way campaign donations are raised and spent plays an important role in who wins and who loses elections. If shady ActBlue policies allow fraudulent donations, what about the origin of those donations? As investigations proceed, the outcome could carry significant legal and political consequences for how ActBlue conducts business and could lead to criminal charges.
We have been tracking potential ActBlue criminal activity for several years, as its fundraising platform may have been used in illegal money-laundering schemes. I have written many Substack articles on the subject, documenting evidence appearing to show hundreds of millions of dollars being illegally laundered, per FEC publicly available records on the FEC.gov website.
If bad actors can easily launder hundreds of millions of dollars illegally by identity theft and/or creating fake donors, then creating fake voters and voting for them should be just as easy, perhaps even easier (especially with mail-in voting).
Fraud by Democrats is nothing new.* E.g., in 2008 (during the ACORN years), the Obama Campaign was caught and fined by the FEC for not disclosing the identity of over 1,300 donors, totaling nearly 2 million dollars (it was also alleged that the campaign accepted illegal campaign contributions from overseas). The campaign got off easy as it took the FEC four years to make public and levy the fine, ONLY AFTER Obama won his 2nd term to office in 2012.
The Criminal Cartels, Marxists, and the Leftist Democrats and the Deep State will do anything to destroy America!
All indications are that they have been doing this for many years! The good news is that criminal activity is being detected and pursued. Each day that passes brings more evidence of massive corruption. We are committed to, and demand to know, who is responsible, and whoever is intentionally breaking the law needs to be exposed and eradicated!
The current DOJ and Congressional investigations into this are vital to get our elections back on track! Without free and fair elections, America and our civil society are doomed.
Bill Bruch
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Committee Chairman (6th year), WAGOP Executive Board Member (6th year), Skagit County GOP Chairman (10th year), Citizen Journalist, Olympic Conference 2021 Activist of the Year Award Winner, Business Owner, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016 and 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate
I'll believe it to be more than a dog and pony show when high level miscreants are prosecuted and end up behind bars. Sadly, all too often, embarrassment is the final result, or MAYBE some low-level temporary employee gets put on probation, but never the high-level organizers.
Do I sound disgusted in our two-tiered legal system? You bet! I have seen it for decades. Grrr!
Excellent report! The Act Blue fraud has been going on for years and only now, since Trump took office, has the federal administration been taking action. Long overdue but very much appreciated. Let's see though if ANYONE of CONSEQUENCE gets prosecuted. If not, then this is just a dog and pony show.