WASHINGTON — ActBlue, a major Democratic fundraising platform, allowed potentially illegal foreign donations to reach US political campaigns and organizations despite having fraud-screening procedures that appeared largely superficial, according to a report issued this week by three Republican-led House committees.
The House Oversight, Judiciary and Administration committees said newly obtained records show that ActBlue’s safeguards — including its process for checking passport information — were easily exploitable by donors operating from abroad.
The report cited an ActBlue customer-service page describing the platform’s passport checks as little more than a format review. The system examined the number of characters entered to determine whether it resembled a valid passport number, but did not otherwise authenticate the information.
ActBlue’s own guidance acknowledged that the data was not compared with a government database. Instead, the information was stored and the donor was allowed to proceed through the contribution process, according to the report.
The committees also said ActBlue’s internal policies instructed fraud reviewers to “give the donor the benefit of the doubt,” even when a contribution came from a foreign IP address or included other clues suggesting that the donor was outside the United States.
In one June 2024 exchange, an ActBlue supervisor encouraged an employee to approve a donation despite the donor’s Hong Kong IP address, writing that no other available indicators raised concerns.
In another case involving a contribution accepted in early 2022, a supervisor noted that the available evidence pointed to Canada while the donation listed a Missouri billing address. The supervisor cited the donor’s Twitter account as evidence that the individual appeared to be genuine.
The report further alleged that all members of ActBlue’s legal and compliance departments departed after the 2024 election because of what the committees characterized as the “knowing and willful” acceptance of unlawful foreign contributions, followed by an effort to conceal what happened.
ActBlue rejected the findings. “There’s nothing to see here,” a spokesperson said, arguing that a third-party forensic analysis had already discredited a central allegation made against the fundraising platform.
The spokesperson accused Republicans of staging another political attack rather than pursuing legislation, saying the investigation was part of an effort to intimidate or silence groups viewed as a threat to the Republican agenda.
On Wednesday, the day the report was released, ActBlue published the results of a review of donations collected in 2023. The audit concluded that 99.99% of those contributions came from individuals who supplied either a US address or a passport number.
House Republicans began examining ActBlue in 2023 after allegations emerged that the platform did not require donors to provide a Card Verification Value, or CVV, when making credit- or debit-card contributions — a practice critics said could make unauthorized transactions easier.
The Post later reported that internal records obtained during the inquiry showed ActBlue had adopted less stringent fraud-review standards during the 2024 election cycle.
Several ActBlue officials were subpoenaed to testify before Congress, but most invoked their Fifth Amendment protections. CEO Regina Wallace-Jones was among those who declined to answer questions after lawmakers accused her of giving Congress misleading information about the platform’s fraud controls.
ActBlue’s attorneys resigned in early 2025, saying the company had failed to act on their warnings about weaknesses in its safeguards against fraudulent donations.
The report said ActBlue continues to withhold portions of a resignation letter written by former lawyer Aaron Ting, citing attorney-client privilege.
