House Republicans are ratcheting up their long-running investigation into ActBlue, summoning the Democratic fundraising platform's own outside attorney for a closed-door interview over what they call a whitewashed defense of its foreign-donor screening.
Why it matters: Federal law bars political committees from accepting contributions from foreign nationals, and Republicans say internal ActBlue records they've reviewed undercut the platform's public assurances that its safeguards work — a credibility problem for the fundraising engine behind nearly every major Democratic campaign.
Driving the news:
House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Oversight Chair James Comer sent a letter Monday summoning Ronald Machen, a WilmerHale partner representing ActBlue, for a transcribed interview before October 9, per the Washington Examiner.
Investigators say Machen's defense of ActBlue's donor-vetting process conflicts with internal documents showing employees entered placeholder text — including strings like “ACTBLUEXX” — in fields meant to require valid U.S. passport numbers, according to Fox News.
The demand follows an internal review by Dana Remus, a former White House counsel under President Biden, which reportedly found a “substantial risk” that some contributions were “impermissible contributions from foreign nationals.”
It's the latest escalation in a probe that has already seen ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones and cofounder Matt DeBergalis separately invoke the Fifth Amendment during depositions this year, per the Washington Examiner.
By the numbers:
Oct. 9 — the deadline given to Machen to sit for the interview.
22 — the number of times Wallace-Jones invoked her Fifth Amendment rights during her June 10 deposition before the House Administration Committee.
Millions of dollars — the scale of contributions Republicans say may have come from foreign donors, per the committees' letter.
What they're saying: The three committee chairmen say Machen's characterization of the Remus review amounted to “nothing more than an after-the-fact sugarcoating of ActBlue's misconduct.”
The other side: ActBlue has dismissed the House GOP investigation as a “political stunt,” maintaining it has cooperated with the probe and disputing that any vetting gaps amount to knowingly accepting foreign money.
What's next:
Machen has until Oct. 9 to comply with the interview request.
Republicans have previously threatened contempt-of-Congress proceedings against ActBlue leadership over withheld records — a step they could revisit if Machen doesn't appear, per Breitbart.
The bottom line: Two years into a fight over how much foreign money may have flowed through the left's dominant donation pipeline, Republicans are betting that pressuring ActBlue's lawyers — not just its executives — will finally produce answers depositions haven't.
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