GOP Leaders Say ActBlue Foreign Donation Investigation Is ‘Far From Over’

House Republicans say their investigation into Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue is far from finished following a new congressional report alleging serious weaknesses in the organization’s safeguards against illegal foreign political contributions.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said investigators plan to continue aggressively pursuing documents and testimony as they examine whether foreign money improperly entered American political campaigns through the platform. The investigation is being conducted alongside the House Judiciary and House Administration committees.

The three Republican-led committees released their third interim report last week, alleging that ActBlue maintained inadequate procedures for identifying suspicious donations and repeatedly instructed fraud analysts to give donors the “benefit of the doubt” even when transactions displayed multiple warning signs associated with potential foreign contributions.

Investigators specifically raised concerns about ActBlue’s system for verifying American citizens donating from foreign addresses. According to the congressional report, donors could be prompted to enter a U.S. passport number, but the system checked only whether the entry contained the appropriate number of characters rather than verifying the number against an official government database.

Republicans also cited internal communications involving suspicious transactions. In one example described by the committees, an employee identified several warning signs involving a donor, including a foreign credit card, mismatched IP and billing information, an unusual email domain and connections to previously rejected users. The donation was nevertheless approved because employees could not conclusively determine that it was fraudulent.

The investigation has included subpoenas and depositions involving current and former ActBlue employees. According to reporting on the probe, multiple ActBlue officials and board members have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights during questioning, while congressional investigators continue seeking additional testimony and records.

Republicans have emphasized that the report contains allegations and evidence they believe warrant further investigation, rather than a final judicial determination that ActBlue knowingly processed illegal foreign contributions. Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions in connection with U.S. elections.

ActBlue strongly disputes the committees’ conclusions and has accused Republicans of conducting a politically motivated investigation designed to damage Democratic fundraising infrastructure. The organization says an outside forensic review of its 2023 contribution data found that 99.99% of nearly $990 million in political contributions came from donors who supplied either a U.S. address or passport number.

ActBlue also maintains that donations originating overseas are frequently legitimate contributions from American citizens living abroad, including members of the military, diplomats and students. It says its compliance team followed up on questionable transactions and required donors using foreign addresses to provide passport information.

Republican investigators remain unconvinced and say they intend to continue pursuing records and testimony as they consider possible changes to federal campaign-finance law. The committees say their broader goal is to determine whether additional safeguards are necessary to prevent foreign money from entering American elections through online fundraising platforms.