by Debra Heine
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced Monday that he has petitioned the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) to take immediate action to “close fundraising loopholes that jeopardize American election integrity” following his investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue.
In a press release, Paxton said that suspicious actors appear to be using ActBlue “to make a large number of straw political donations.”
As American Greatness previously reported, multiple independent investigative journalists, including O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) and Election Watch last year uncovered highly suspicious activity involving millions of dollars in campaign donations to Act Blue that was laundered through unwitting small donors.
The process of breaking up large donations and submitting them under the names of small donors to cover up illegal contributions has been dubbed “smurfing.” Accusations that ActBlue routinely engages in this type of illicit fundraising have dogged the outfit since at least Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
Earlier this month, a coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general, including Paxton, sent a letter to ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones demanding information and explanations regarding the suspicious donations.
The Texas AG’s office opened an investigation into ActBlue in December 2023 “to determine whether the platform’s operations were compliant with all applicable laws.”
The fundraising giant finally began requiring donors using credit cards to provide “CVV” codes in August of 2024, only after a considerable amount of legal pressure was brought to bear.
However, according to Paxton, this policy change was not “a full solution” to ActBlue’s alleged fundraising violations.
“Namely, it appears that straw donations are systematically being made using false identities, through untraceable payment methods,” Paxton explained in the press release.
The Texas AG said that if the loopholes are “not corrected by the FEC, bad actors can—with trivial ease—illegally funnel foreign money into American elections, exceed political contribution limits, and more.”
Paxton transmitted his partially redacted findings to the FEC through a Petition for Rulemaking.
“Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations. It is imperative that the FEC close off the avenues we have identified by which foreign contributions or contributions in excess of legal limits could be unlawfully funneled to political campaigns, bypassing campaign finance regulations and compromising our electoral system,” said Paxton. “I am calling on the FEC to immediately begin rulemaking to secure our elections from any criminal actors exploiting these vulnerabilities.”
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Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
Background Photo “FCC Building” by AlbertHerring. CC BY 3.0.
