A Republican-led House committee fired off a letter to the Treasury Department on Friday that demanded access to any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) as part of a new investigation into a Democratic fundraising platform’s “potentially fraudulent” donations.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking for all SARs between Jan. 1, 2023, and the present that involve the political action committee ActBlue.
The suspicious activities may include “money laundering, counterfeit credit/debit card, credit card or debit card fraud, false statements, wire transfer fraud, or identity theft,” Comer said.
“Federal law prohibits contributions made in the name of another person, and for good reason,” Comer told Yellen.
“The Committee is concerned that failure to properly vet contributions made through online platforms may have allowed bad actors to more easily commit fraud to illegally exploit and violate federal campaign finance laws.”
The House Administration Committee had already been probing ActBlue following reports and a slew of lawsuits brought by GOP states against the Democratic fundraising giant for allegedly accepting massive amounts of contributions from donors who were entirely unaware they were giving money.
“In Virginia, reports of contribution activity facilitated through the ActBlue platform included ‘some cases in which single donors made tens of thousands of separate donations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,’” Comer claimed, citing a report in the Washington Examiner.
The attorneys general of Missouri, Wyoming and Texas have also been probing the “dummy” accounts.
The Democratic fundraising juggernaut opened itself up to potential fraud by not requiring Card Verification Value (CVV) for online transactions with debit or credit cards — before recently reversing course.
The lack of safeguards may have even allowed foreign nationals through gift cards or prepaid debit cards to contribute funds to influence US elections — a violation of federal law.
Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Administration Committee, petitioned the Federal Election Commission (FEC) last month to get involved and craft new rules that would bolster the verification process.
“Following widespread allegations of fraudulent donations being reported to the FEC by ActBlue, one of the largest fundraising platforms in the country, this emergency rule-making is necessary to reassure the American people that ActBlue is taking the necessary steps to protect its donors,” he wrote to FEC chair Sean Cooksey and vice chair Ellen Weintraub.
“These issues present a serious loophole to the transparency and integrity of the campaign donation process, and an emergency rulemaking is required to rectify these issues,” Steil said.
Whistleblowers initially approached his committee about the failure to use CVV figures.
During the 2021-2022 election cycle, ActBlue raised more than $2.2 billion for Democratic candidates and causes, according to the money-in-politics tracker OpenSecrets.com.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
