House Republican investigators say all 10 ActBlue employees and board members questioned in their investigation have invoked the Fifth Amendment, while the Democratic fundraising platform continues to deny wrongdoing and disputes allegations that its systems facilitated illegal foreign contributions.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
All 10 ActBlue employees and board members questioned by three House committees have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights as Republican investigators intensify a years-long examination of the Democratic fundraising platform’s fraud-prevention and foreign-donor safeguards.
Five of the witnesses are ActBlue board members whose deposition transcripts were released this month by the House Judiciary, Administration, and Oversight and Government Reform committees. The committees have said their inquiry will continue with additional documents and depositions.
The Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being compelled to provide testimony that could incriminate them. Invoking it is a constitutional right and does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing.
The latest developments follow the committees’ third interim report, released Sept. 16, which alleges that ActBlue maintained inadequate controls over potentially fraudulent and foreign political donations while representing to Congress that its safeguards were stronger than investigators say internal records showed.
The report alleges that ActBlue adopted what company documents described as a “more lenient” approach to fraud prevention in 2024, including changes that investigators say allowed additional transactions to proceed despite indicators that warranted further review. ActBlue disputes the committees’ conclusions.
The investigation is being conducted jointly by House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Comer said investigators expect the inquiry to continue.
“Whether it’s allowing fraudsters to steal taxpayer dollars or accepting illegal foreign donations through ActBlue, Democrats have proven themselves to be the party of fraud,” Comer told Fox News Digital.
“Our investigation into ActBlue is far from over. We expect more documents and testimony in the weeks ahead.”
The allegations against ActBlue remain findings and conclusions of Republican-led congressional committees rather than criminal convictions or judicial determinations.
ActBlue, one of the Democratic Party’s largest online fundraising platforms, has repeatedly denied intentionally facilitating unlawful donations and says it has strengthened its fraud controls.
The latest committee report builds on a first congressional report released in April 2025, which examined the platform’s historical use of credit-card verification tools and its handling of transactions flagged as potentially fraudulent.
That report said ActBlue had not historically required card verification value, or CVV, information for all transactions and identified at least 22 fraud campaigns that investigators said exploited the platform.
The committee also cited 237 prepaid-card contributions associated with foreign internet protocol addresses during one month before the 2024 election.
A foreign IP address does not necessarily mean a contribution is illegal. U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad may legally contribute to federal campaigns, while foreign nationals generally may not make contributions or expenditures in connection with U.S. elections.
The committees have focused heavily on whether ActBlue’s systems were sufficient to distinguish between the two.
Investigators have also examined the possibility of so-called “smurfing,” a term used to describe schemes in which a large amount of money is divided into numerous smaller contributions and attributed to other individuals.
The congressional reports allege that insufficient identity and payment verification could create opportunities for such activity. The committees have not established that every suspicious or flagged transaction they identified represented an illegal contribution.
One of the latest points of dispute involves ActBlue’s procedures for donors using foreign addresses.
ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones previously told congressional investigators that contributors listing non-U.S. addresses were required to provide passport information.
Republican investigators say internal records show the system checked whether an entered passport number contained the expected number of characters but did not validate the number against a government passport database.
“ActBlue’s own admissions raise serious questions about its fraud prevention practices, including a so-called passport verification process that did not actually verify or check entries against any government database,” Steil told Fox News Digital on Friday.
“All options are on the table to ensure we get to the bottom of what is going on at ActBlue.”
ActBlue has disputed the implication that its system was merely cosmetic.
The organization said donors who entered foreign addresses were required under its policy to provide U.S. passport numbers and that its compliance team followed up when users selected the United States while entering an overseas address.
A third-party forensic review commissioned by ActBlue subsequently examined the company’s 2023 contribution data.
According to ActBlue’s release describing that analysis, 99.99% of approximately $990 million in political contributions during 2023 came from donors who provided either a U.S. address or a passport number.
The analysis addressed whether donors supplied those identifiers. It did not mean that every passport number had been independently authenticated against a federal passport database.
ActBlue maintains that the review supports the accuracy of what it previously told Congress.
The committees disagree and say internal communications show fraud analysts sometimes approved contributions even when transactions contained foreign indicators.
One example cited by investigators involved a donation associated with a Hong Kong IP address that an internal document described as a “great accept” because other information associated with the donor did not raise the same concerns.
Another internal discussion involved a transaction that had initially been denied but that an employee argued should have been accepted because the donor’s name, email address and billing information appeared consistent.
In another example cited in the committee report, a transaction associated with a Missouri billing address reportedly displayed indicators pointing toward Canada but was approved after an analyst wrote that “Twitter seems to confirm that they are a real person.”
The committees contend those examples show ActBlue personnel were sometimes instructed to give donors the benefit of the doubt when transactions contained potentially conflicting indicators.
ActBlue has said isolated examples do not demonstrate widespread foreign contribution activity and argues Republican investigators are portraying legitimate fraud-review judgments as evidence of misconduct.
The investigation has also centered on testimony — or the lack of it — from ActBlue personnel.
Five current or former employees deposed during an earlier phase of the inquiry invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to substantive questioning, according to the committees’ second interim report. Republican investigators said those witnesses invoked the privilege 146 times in total.
The committees then sought interviews and records from five ActBlue directors: Kimberly Peeler-Allen, Matt DeBergalis, Marc Laitin, Muthoni Wambu Kraal and Benjamin Rahn. All five board-member transcripts have now been released by the Judiciary Committee.
DeBergalis, an ActBlue co-founder, was among those who invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Wallace-Jones separately invoked the Fifth Amendment during a June 10 public hearing before the House Administration Committee rather than answer lawmakers’ substantive questions.
A spokesperson for Jordan told Fox News Digital that the committee “will continue aggressive oversight of ActBlue, including additional depositions.”
Republicans say the unwillingness of witnesses to answer questions strengthens the case for continuing congressional scrutiny.
ActBlue and its supporters argue that the investigation itself is politically motivated and that witnesses’ constitutional decisions should not be treated as admissions of misconduct.
The broader investigation dates back to questions Steil raised about ActBlue’s fraud controls in 2023 and expanded significantly after the 2024 election.
The House committees say internal materials subsequently produced by ActBlue raised concerns about how the platform evaluated foreign-linked transactions and whether congressional investigators initially received complete information.
The committees’ April 2026 report also described departures from ActBlue’s legal and compliance operation following the 2024 election. Five employees questioned during that stage invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than provide substantive answers, according to the committees.
Republicans are now examining board-level decision-making as well as the actions of individual fraud analysts and executives.
The latest reporting on the continuing congressional inquiry indicates investigators expect further testimony and records in the coming weeks.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has meanwhile called on Democratic House candidates and incumbents to stop using ActBlue and return contributions determined to be illegal.
“House Democrats cannot claim ignorance while continuing to rely on a fundraising platform facing serious allegations,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella said. “The National Republican Congressional Committee officially calls on every House Democrat to cut ties with ActBlue and return any illegal contributions funneled to their campaigns through the platform.”
That demand is a partisan political position and does not establish that contributions processed through ActBlue generally — or contributions received by particular Democratic campaigns — were unlawful.
ActBlue has rejected the Republican characterization of the investigation.
“There’s nothing to see here,” ActBlue said, arguing that the forensic examination of its records undermined central allegations advanced by House Republicans.
The organization accused investigators of “orchestrating another political stunt before rushing out of town weeks early to go campaign.”
ActBlue has also characterized the investigation more broadly as an attempt “to silence organizations they believe threaten their agenda.”
Its Sept. 16 statement said its 2023 records showed nearly all contribution dollars came from people who supplied either domestic addresses or passport numbers and argued that the outside review demonstrated its earlier statements to Congress were accurate.
Republican investigators say that response does not resolve their central concern: whether the information supplied by contributors was actually sufficient to establish that money originated from permissible U.S. donors.
The committees also contend that the company’s internal materials reveal a gap between policies described publicly and how individual transactions were handled.
ActBlue denies that those records show systemic illegal fundraising.
The committees have not announced a final conclusion to their investigation, and no court has ruled that ActBlue systematically processed illegal foreign contributions.
For now, the congressional inquiry is moving into another phase, with all 10 employees and directors deposed by the committees having invoked the Fifth Amendment and Republican investigators seeking additional records and testimony.
The central factual dispute remains unresolved: House Republicans argue that ActBlue’s internal communications and verification practices reveal serious vulnerabilities to fraudulent or prohibited foreign contributions, while ActBlue says its data and outside forensic review demonstrate that its safeguards worked and that the investigation has exaggerated isolated concerns into allegations of widespread misconduct.
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