Tag Archives: ActBlue

Shenanigans In Campaign Donations

Posted on by

In December 2024, I wrote an article about campaign donations to Democrats coming from ActBlue. ActBlue was recording donations from people who never sent them. The actual origin of those donations was unknown. Well, at least we have reached the point where Congress is looking at the situation.

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported:

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued ActBlue, the Democrat fundraising platform, for “deceiving Americans by lying about its donation processes that allow fraudulent and foreign donations.” This was following an internal investigation that “prove[d] that ActBlue continues to process gift card donations” without proving identification of the donor.

The same day, the House Judiciary Committee deposed five employees after subpoenas were issued to two employees in June 2025 by Reps. Jim Jordan, Bryan Steil, and James Comer. The recent depositions included “top staff responsible for fraud prevention” and sought to “learn more about the platform’s acceptance of illegal donations – and the subsequent cover-up,” according to a post on X by the House Judiciary GOP.

…The House Judiciary GOP account states that the five employees were asked 146 questions and that the ActBlue employees “refused to answer a single one, invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination every time.”

The questions included:

    • Is there any reason you are unable to provide truthful answers to today’s questions?
    • Have ActBlue executives ever instructed you to allow more fraud on the platform or weaken ActBlue’s fraud-prevention defenses?
    • Have you ever been part of a conspiracy to launder foreign money into fraudulent donations for campaigns using ActBlue?
    • Did members of ActBlue’s legal and compliance teams leave ActBlue after the 2024 election because of the platform’s inability to prevent fraud during previous election cycles?

Pleading the Fifth does not mean that you are guilty, but it is definitely interesting that the people from ActBlue would not even explain why they wouldn’t answer the questions. Hopefully someone will go to jail for their criminal activity.

There Are Many Ways To Influence An Election

Posted on by

There are many ways to influence an election. One way is to limit the amount of money paid to a political party or candidate. Another way is to make sure a political party has plenty of money to spread around. It is not a coincidence that the massive cut to the funding of The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in a shortage of funds at the Democrat party. The money given to the non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) somehow had a way of winding up in groups that supported causes friendly to Democrats. Supposedly non-political organizations can also play a role in how much money a political party has to spend.

On Thursday, Townhall reported:

A political consulting firm, Targeted Victory, claims Gmail has been flagging Republican fundraising emails containing WinRed links as “dangerous” and sending many straight to spam folders. WinRed, the GOP’s central online fundraising platform, brought in roughly $1.6 billion for the 2023–2024 cycle. Its Democratic counterpart, ActBlue, appears to face no such labeling, with emails containing its links going through unimpeded.

The article concludes:

While Targeted Victory was the first to experience the problem, they said the “issue is occurring across vendors’ campaigns and personal Gmail accounts, eliminating the possibility of it being a Targeted Victory-specific or network issue.”

If accurate, this goes beyond a simple technical hiccup; it affects the flow of political funding and the effectiveness of campaigns. In an environment where small-dollar donations drive those campaigns, filtering one party’s platform while clearing its rival’s creates a built-in advantage with real electoral consequences. Something the GOP cannot afford in the upcoming midterm elections.

As more Americans become aware of some of the questionable activities of the Democrat party, I suspect the Republicans will be okay in the midterms.

Tracking Illegal Campaign Donations

Posted on by

On Sunday (updated Monday), Just the News posted an article about questionable campaign donations to Democrats funneled through ActBlue.

The article reports:

For the first time, a Wisconsin court has approved a subpoena to the massive Democrat fund-raising platform ActBlue, saying it owes an explanation to a Republican whose email identity was used to make liberal donations he did not authorize. 

“Something is not right,” Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad D. Schimel declared as he approved a limited demand for documents and opened a new front into a widening fund-raising probe begun earlier this year by Congress and 19 attorneys general.

Schimel rejected ActBlue’s arguments that it was onerous to require it to comply a subpoena for third-party donations it processed on its platform. The judge permitted GOP consultant Mark Block and his lawyers from America First Policy Institute to conduct discovery to determine if fraud was involved in the use of his identity to make dozens of Democrat donations on his old email address.

The article notes:

ActBlue’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried to quash the subpoena, arguing that a man using the identity Bernard Cain used Block’s email address from California and Colorado and that it is not responsible for his actions.

The judge rejected a broader subpoena sought by Block’s ‘lawyers that would have required ActBlue to disclose how it guards against fraud but approved a revised version offered by the plaintiff that aimed to ascertain how the donations using Block’s email addresses were paid,

“ActBlue is not a party to this action,” attorney Glenn Graham argued on behalf of the fundraising platform. “They are not a defendant. The case law, and I know you read the brief, the first step to get the information from the interested person himself or herself and here that interested person is Bernard Cain. And it sounds like plaintiff is close to getting that information.”

…Block filed a lawsuit this fall after he discovered an old email account he used for the 2012 Herman Cain presidential campaign was receiving receipts for donations to Democrat candidates like Kamala Harris that he did not make. 

The use of peoples’ names without their consent by ActBlue has been going on for a while. During the last election season, people in various areas of the country who had supposedly made campaign contributions were interviewed and denied knowledge of the contributions. The ActBlue campaign finance source is simply one more pipeline  that needs to be blocked off in order to improve election integrity.

Imaginary People Making Real Donations

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the funding for ActBlue. ActBlue was founded in 2009 to help Democrats in fundraising. The organization serves as a conduit for left-wing donors, with two more arms—ActBlue Charities and ActBlue Civics—funneling money to 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) clients, respectively.

The article reports:

Paging Dr. Adrienne Young, M.D. 

The good doctor is listed online as an “internist” in McKees Rocks, a borough in western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, known locally as “the Rocks.”

Campaign finance filings report Young’s practice is located on Heckel Road in McKees and list a 412 area code phone number. But her office does not appear to exist at this address and the number is not in service. Moreover, none of the receptionists attached to doctors’ offices located in close proximity to Young’s office address in McKees have ever heard of her. That’s peculiar in and of itself. But a search of campaign finance records only adds to the intrigue. 

Someone identified as Adrienne Young has been making substantial contributions to a left-of-center political action committee known as ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. 

…Restoration News is still attempting to contact the individual listed in campaign finance documents as Adrienne Young. Records list her residing on Leet Road in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. These records show that since 2017, Young has made 17,342 in contributions to ActBlue totaling $209,670.06—which averages seven contributions per day. 

Evidently the doctor is doing very well.

The article notes:

“Smurfing” involves repackaging large sums of money into smaller, individual transactions to appear less suspicious and avoid scrutiny from law enforcement officials. Is “Adrienne Young” a cover for such an operation, benefiting Democrats?

While it is indisputably the case that ActBlue is ringing the bell with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, it’s not evident the smaller contributions that translate over time into larger sums are coming from an individual donor.

One of the more recent contributions to ActBlue leading back to the donor identified as Young came on March 16, 2023, in the amount of $1196.50. That’s not an unusual amount for an individual, but what is unusual is folding that amount into more than 17,000 contributions made over the span of several years. The donor identified as Young was actively contributing to ActBlue at least through part of this year with a donation of $429.00 made on April 30, 2024. If a smurfing operation is underway, it may not be limited to what’s flowing into ActBlue. 

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This sort of cheating needs to have serious legal consequences.

On Friday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article with the response of the Former Chief Impact Officer at ActBlue.

This is the response:

In a recent interview with an OKeefeMedia Citizen Journalist, Geri Prado former Chief Impact Officer at ActBlue, downplayed concerns about the organization’s suspicious fundraising practices. Prado attempted to brush off allegations by describing ActBlue merely as “a payment processor for campaigns, but it’s not a campaign,” and likened it to PayPal, citing credit card fees as a standard issue.

When asked about potential money laundering, Prado dismissed the concern, “No… It’s a very hard thing to do,” downplaying the likelihood of any illegal activity. However, she admits, “There are other problems,” hinting at other issues within the organization.

This comes amidst reports that Federal Election Commission (FEC) records are inaccurately reflecting senior citizens as having made donations far beyond their actual contributions.

It will be interesting to see what the current Department of Justice does with these allegations.

Where Is Kamala Harris’ Campaign Money Coming From?

Posted on by

I think we have the answer.

This was posted on Twitter on Thursday (If the picture doesn’t immediately come up, click on the link):

EXPOSING ActBlue, Democrat Money Laundering Operation Journalist Esala “This New Orleans, LA resident told me that she lives on Social Security and DID NOT contribute to ActBlue. in the amount of $29,107.34 between the years 2016-2022. 2022: 1,113 counts = $13,347.84 2021: 715 counts = $6,957.90 2020: 839 counts = $6,983.10 2016-2019: 190 counts = $1,818.50

Follow The Money

Posted on by

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article tracing some of the campaign donations to Joe Biden.

The article notes:

Some smart sleuthing by Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters at The National Pulse shows the donations made to Black Lives Matter actually go to ActBlue.  From there ActBlue takes those contributions and sends them forward to the Joe Biden Campaign.

As of May 21st, ActBlue has donated $119,253,857 to the “Biden for President” effort. So a contribution to Black Lives Matter, the ideology behind the shooting of the police officers, is a contribution to the Joe Biden campaign.

It’s a smart workaround and provides a back-door for all of the Hollywood and social influence crowd to use.  By supporting donations to Black Lives Matter, the leftist movement writ large is essentially funding the DNC.   The BLM movement is simply a vessel for them to use and exploit.

Keep in mind you are now hearing of multi-million donations to Black Lives Matter from big corporations.  Any corporation that pays into this scheme is actually paying to fund Joe Biden 2020 and the Democrats.  Now all of those “donations” make sense.

In June, The National Pulse noted:

After reaching the BLM homepage, which features a “Defund The Police” petition front and center, if a user chooses to donate, they’re rerouted to a site hosted by ActBlue and prompted with the message: “We appreciate your support of the movement and our ongoing fight to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever.”

The page notes: “By proceeding with this transaction, you agree to ActBlue’s terms & conditions”and includes a banner “ActBlue Charities is a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed under the law” at the bottom of the page.

ActBlue is not a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and can make political donations.Act Blue Charities is the 501(c)(3). That is how they get around the IRS regulation that prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from being involved in partisan politics. The banner is totally misleading.

Yesterday Townhall reported:

The conservative group Take Back Action Fund is sounding the alarm on millions of political donations made to former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. According to the group, more than half of the 2019 contributions Biden received on the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue came from unemployed people, Fox News reported. That number has increased in 2020, particularly in light of the pandemic.

The organization decided to look at data from 2019, before the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, to get a better idea of what donations were like at a time when the unemployment rate was relatively low – around four percent. Last year, 48.4 percent of ActBlue’s donations were from “unemployed.”

This is a snapshot into the funding of Joe Biden’s campaign.

Not Everyone Cheers When The Playing Field Is Leveled

Posted on by

Michael Graham posted an article in the Boston Herald today about the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign donations.

Michael Graham explains why the decision is important to Massachusetts:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s campaign-finance ruling is the first ray of sunshine to reach the Massachusetts Republican party in a long time.

To understand why, you need to know three simple facts about who pays for campaigns, facts that are almost never reported in the mainstream media:

• Six of the top 10 campaign donors are unions. And their money overwhelmingly goes to Democrats. Incumbent Democrats in particular.

• Sixteen of the top 25 campaign funders are liberal, Democratic organizations like ActBlue ($97 million in campaign cash since 1989), which also give disproportionately to incumbents. Only three of the top 25 are Republican.

• None of them are the Koch Brothers. (They rank 57th.)

If you haven’t figured it out, the purpose of campaign finance restrictions is to protect incumbent politicians. This shouldn’t be a surprise given that these laws were passed by … incumbent politicians.

And in Massachusetts, “incumbent” is a synonym for “Democrat.” (When it comes to federal office-holders here, that is literally true.) So any change that makes life more difficult for incumbents is good news for the local GOP.

Union money has bought and sold elections in Massachusetts and some other states for a very long time. This ruling levels the playing field and lets other people with money play. That is why the Democrat party is making such a big deal about it.

The unintended consequence of this ruling may be that being able to be in public office long enough to go from being broke to multi millionaire may no longer be possible. It may be that being in public office may no longer be a career. Keep in mind that our founding fathers envisioned a government made up of ordinary citizens. Unfortunately we have forgotten that concept and created career politicians.

Not everyone loves it when you level the playing field.

Enhanced by Zemanta