by George Rasley
About 18 months ago, Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to Federal Election Commission Chair and Vice Chair Dara Lindenbaum and Sean J. Cooksey demanding answers to allegations that ActBlue, the Democrats’ billion-dollar fundraising platform, engaged in a scheme to solicit illegal campaign donations through “ghost donors.”
According to information obtained by Senator Rubio, ActBlue allegedly laundered millions of dollars in campaign donations from diminutive donors, including seniors, through illegal contributions, without the consent or knowledge of those donors.
In addition, unlike almost every other political campaign and political action committee, ActBlue does not require a Card Verification Number (CVV) as a condition for making a donation. Requiring a CVV as a condition for making an online transaction is standard practice in the e-commerce industry to reduce fraud and prevent illegal foreign transactions. ActBlue must be held accountable for its obvious lack of security protocols.
These reports indicate that many people, including seniors, allegedly donated to ActBlue thousands of times a year. However, according to recent investigative reports, many of these people had no idea that their names and addresses were being used to funnel thousands of dollars in political donations, with the majority of those “donations” going to ActBlue. It should come as no surprise that ActBlue is being used as a vehicle for fraud, given the deliberate lack of security ingrained in their donation processes and systems.
Senator Rubio’s letter noted that, recognizing foreign actors who exploit phony accounts to exploit donation systems that lack tough verification processes and systems, most individual campaigns and political action committees (PACs) require CVV numbers as part of making online donations. However, in a break from most organizations, ActBlue does not require CVV numbers as a requirement for making donations and thus does not facilitate fraud.
New Orleans donor shocked to learn how many times Democratic PAC ActBlue claims she donated to them.
ActBlue needs to be investigated for money laundering.photo:twitter.com/yqCfaeFUTr
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) July 25, 2024
No one familiar with ActBlue or those associated with it will be surprised that the FEC did nothing with Senator Rubio’s letter.
And this is nothing fresh in 2023.
A preliminary computer analysis by the Take Back Action Fund, accessed exclusively by Fox News, found that nearly half of all donations to ActBlue in 2019 came from people claiming to be unemployed.
“After downloading hundreds of millions [dollars in] donations to the Take Back Action Fund servers, we were shocked to see that nearly half of ActBlue’s donations in 2019 came from unemployed people,” said Action Fund President John Pudner. “Employers are required to be disclosed for political donations, but more than 4.7 million donations came from people who said they had no employer. Those 4.7 million donations totaled $346 million raised by ActBlue and sent to liberal causes.”
That trend continued in 2020: Action Fund’s analysis of 2020 data from January to August showed an enhance in donations from “unemployed” people through ActBlue to 50.1 percent this year.
Pudner said the immense number of donations is a warning sign that some of them may be illegal payments from foreign interest groups trying to influence the U.S. election.
“It’s hard to believe that at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate was less than 4 percent, unemployed people had $346 million to donate to ActBlue for liberal causes,” Pudner said, adding that “the 4.7 million donations from unemployed people … raised serious concerns.”
This is a chart I created that was part of the report.
The employer must be reported, but if you’re making a donation on behalf of someone you don’t know, you probably don’t know the name of their actual employer – so you leave this field blank and list retired/unemployed instead. photo:twitter.com/SKAWNLZdZD
— Matt Braynard (@MattBraynard) July 24, 2024
Fast forward to today: James O’Keefe of O’Keefe Media Group has continued to push the FEC in a direction he did not want to engage in.
How long has ActBlue been laundering Democrat money using senior citizens’ names?
This is probably how Kamala Harris “raised” over $100 million in one day. photo:twitter.com/XBKQO27Llq
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) July 25, 2024
O’Keefe (pictured above, left) found many more, including a donor from Wisconsin who was reported to have made more than 10,000 individual donations.
James O’Keefe “OMG” worked with citizen journalists to get this footage, more Democrats ActBlue Money Money Laundering
Wisconsin residents made over 10,000 donations to ActBlue that were NOT RECOGNIZED
“It says you’ve donated 10,989 times. That’s about 4 times a day.” photo: twitter.com/X8IT3Wkk2X
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) July 24, 2024
James O’Keefe, Matt Braynard, John Pudner, and a U.S. senator reported irregularities in donations to the FEC dating back to 2019 or earlier. They found that many people unknowingly gave ActBlue larger amounts of money than their actual donation.
The question is: Why didn’t the authorities investigate their findings and allegations? One reason that comes to mind is that the Democrats in charge of the Justice Department and who hold the majority on the Federal Election Commission know exactly what’s going on and don’t want to cut off the flow of illegal funds to their party.
That’s why we believe the Republican-led House of Representatives should hold oversight hearings, and Republican state attorneys general should launch their own investigations, using state fraud and identity theft laws — and perhaps RICO — to crack down on ActBlue and put a stop to their phantom donor money laundering scams.
Over 400,000 fresh ActBlue accounts have been created in the last 30 days. Remember those emails asking for $3, $2, and $1 donations?
This was NEVER about the donation itself, but about setting up ActBlue accounts for these donors to facilitate the fraud.
NOTE: The name “FJB” refers to… https://t.co/B4XdBBJRAA photo: twitter.com/azNgVyUx3H
— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) July 25, 2024
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George Rasley is the editor of ConservativeHQ.com
ActBlue Ghost Donor Photo by O’Keefe Media Group
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