House GOP report accuses ActBlue of allowing illegal foreign donations to Democratic campaigns

A Republican-led House investigation report accuses Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue of maintaining inadequate safeguards that allowed illegal foreign donations to flow to U.S. campaigns. Internal records show supervisors instructed analysts to wave through flagged transactions, including those from foreign IP addresses. Following internal warnings, ActBlue's entire legal team departed, and multiple executives, including CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, invoked the Fifth Amendment. ActBlue disputes the findings, calling the probe a partisan political stunt and citing a forensic audit of 2023 data.

ActBlue foreign donation allegations

• ▪The House Judiciary, Administration, and Oversight and Government Reform committees released Part III of their staff report on ActBlue's fundraising practices on September 16, 2026.
• ▪A Republican-led House investigation report released on September 16, 2026, accused the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue of maintaining inadequate safeguards against illegal foreign political donations.

Inadequate fraud prevention safeguards

• ▪ActBlue supervisors repeatedly instructed fraud analysts to give donors the benefit of the doubt even when transactions displayed indicators of potential foreign or fraudulent activity.
• ▪ActBlue's internal policy records cited in the House report state that the platform does not verify passport information against government databases and only checks the character count of entered passport numbers.
• ▪An earlier 2025 House committee report contended that ActBlue weakened its fraud-prevention standards twice in 2024 by reducing manual reviews.

Congressional investigation findings

• ▪An ActBlue supervisor approved an early 2022 donation from a donor with a Missouri billing address whose other data pointed to Canada because Twitter seemed to confirm they were a real person.
• ▪The House report documented that ActBlue's internal records showed at least 22 fraud campaigns, account takeovers used for straw donations, and 237 prepaid-card donations from foreign IP addresses in a single month before the 2024 election.
• ▪The House committees began seeking additional records after an April 2026 New York Times report cited internal documents that ActBlue had not previously provided.
• ▪An ActBlue supervisor approved a June 2024 contribution from a donor with an IP address in Hong Kong, stating that none of their other signals raised eyebrows.

Staff departures after 2024

• ▪ActBlue IT director Hanna Bonin deleted Zain Ahmad's messages in a 277-person IT channel where he objected to being locked out of his email and cited whistleblower policies.
• ▪ActBlue legal counsel Zain Ahmad put memoranda from outside counsel warning of potential knowing and willful violations before the board on February 25, 2025, and was locked out of his email the next day.
• ▪Every member of ActBlue's legal and compliance team left the platform within four months after the 2024 election following internal warnings about lax fraud safeguards.

Fifth Amendment invocations

• ▪ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during a House Administration Committee hearing in June 2026.
• ▪ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergalis and board chair Kimberly Peeler-Allen invoked their Fifth Amendment rights in August and September 2026.
• ▪Five current and former ActBlue employees, including Zain Ahmad, former General Counsel Darrin Hurwitz, and Aaron Ting, invoked their Fifth Amendment rights 146 times when subpoenaed by congressional investigators.

ActBlue dispute of claims

• ▪ActBlue released a third-party forensic analysis of its 2023 data showing that 99.99 percent of the nearly $990 million donated that year came from donors who provided a U.S. address or passport number.
• ▪ActBlue dismissed the House committees' findings as a partisan political stunt and a coordinated effort to silence organizations that Republicans consider obstacles to their agenda.

Debatable claims

• ▪ActBlue failed to maintain adequate safeguards against illegal foreign donations
• ▪The House GOP investigation into ActBlue is a partisan political stunt