House Republicans are threatening to hold the CEO of Democratic fundraising company ActBlue in contempt of Congress as part of an investigation into its allegedly “unserious approach to fraud prevention,” CBS News has learned.
“There is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld” some documents “to impede our investigation,” the heads of three House committees — Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky — wrote in a letter Tuesday to ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones.
For more than a year, the House Judiciary Committee, Oversight Committee and Administration Committee — which oversees elections — have investigated allegations that ActBlue may have allowed “bad actors to make fraudulent political donations, including from foreign sources.”
ActBlue plays a critical role in channeling grassroots donations to Democratic candidates for elected office as the leading software company that processes those contributions for their political campaigns.
A week ago, the New York Times reported that a law firm working for ActBlue found Wallace-Jones may have misled Congress about its vetting procedures to ensure donations were not unlawfully coming from foreign citizens. Last July, House Republicans subpoenaed ActBlue for documents and communications after a previous report on an exodus of staff from the company.
An ActBlue spokesperson told CBS News that the latest letter from Republicans “is a desperate attempt to deflect from the Right’s ongoing issues.”
“They know no platform does more to protect the integrity of small-dollar democracy than ActBlue,” the spokesperson said, adding that “we have always been forthcoming with Congress, and we will not be intimidated by partisan theater.”
ActBlue said in a statement in early April that Wallace-Jones “never made false statements to Congress” and that the company “remains stable and stronger than ever.”
A House Republican aide told CBS News that all options are on the table to compel the production of documents — including potentially voting to hold Wallace-Jones in contempt of Congress. It’s a federal misdemeanor for those who “willfully” fail to comply with a subpoena, and cases are enforced by the Justice Department.
The letter said the committees “are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas.”
With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, there is heightened scrutiny of how Democrats process donations in elections. WinRed is the software used by many Republicans to process donations.
Last April, President Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate “extremely troubling evidence that online fundraising platforms have been willing participants in schemes to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees.” The executive order focused on what it called “unlawful ‘straw donor’ and foreign contributions in American elections.”
Steil, Jordan and Comer asked Wallace-Jones on Tuesday for documents and messages on its policies to prevent political donations by foreign nationals, as well as on the “potential or actual use of ActBlue by foreign nationals to make political contributions.”
The letter asked for compliance with the subpoenas and new document requests within two weeks.
