President Trump has decided to target the online fundraising websites that power a majority of Democrats’ political campaigns. In an executive order on Thursday, the Trump administration initiated a plan to investigate ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s primary grassroots fundraising tool.
The executive order, which was published on the White House website on Thursday, claims that “foreign nationals” could be using fundraising sites like ActBlue to make contributions to American elections. The order authorizes the new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, to probe such sites for evidence of malfeasance. It states:
…press reports and investigations by congressional committees have generated 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 order goes on:
Specifically, these reports raise concerns that malign actors are seeking to evade Federal source and amount limitations on political contributions by breaking down large contributions from one source into many smaller contributions, nominally attributed to numerous other individuals, potentially without the consent or even knowledge of the putative contributors. The reports also raise concerns that such “straw donations” are being made through “dummy” accounts, potentially using gift cards or prepaid credit cards to evade detection.
The order authorizes Bondi and Bessent to use “all lawful authority, as necessary, to investigate” the fundraising tools for signs of foreign influence. Gizmodo reached out to the Trump administration for more information.
The order also cites a previous probe by House Republicans into ActBlue that supposedly found evidence of foreign-based fraud on the platform.
It should be noted that Republicans have their own fundraising operation that was launched during Trump’s first administration. WinRed was launched in 2019 as a “for-profit” fundraising tool, and a means for the GOP to compete with Democrats’ ActBlue. The Trump administration actively lobbied Republicans to use the tool, which has not been nearly as successful as its Democratic counterpart, and has often been criticized by Republicans themselves. The platform was previously investigated by several state attorneys general for the tactics it used to encourage donations.
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