For a non-profit organization raising money, honesty lies in truthfully revealing its focus. Such honesty does not compensate, however, for subsequent dishonesty about how those funds are raised.

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From its name, the fundraising focus of ActBlue was readily apparent. The first syllable signified its political activism while the second signified it was acting on behalf of the Democrat party, associated with the color blue.

Started in 2004 to facilitate funding for progressive causes, ActBlue claimed to be “the complete campaign kit” and that “thousands of Democratic campaigns and organizations use ActBlue to fundraise, organize, and win. Join them with a platform you can trust.” But it was that same trust that became the subject of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on June 10.

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As is often the wont of Democrats seeking to undermine the credibility of a hearing called by Republicans to investigate potential wrongdoing by left-leaning entities, they condemned this one too as being politically motivated. The hearing had called ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones as a witness, who initially indicated she would be willing to testify.

However, committee member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) quickly dispelled the myth of political motivation by Republicans. He pointed out the hearing was being held due to an allegation made by a former White House counsel for President Joe Biden and Covington & Burling’s legal counsel to ActBlue—Dana Remus. The communication between Remus and Wallace-Jones (apparently obtained by the committee) triggered the hearing based on a suggestion the latter may have willfully and knowingly misled the Congress of the United States.

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There was no basis in fact for Democrats to accuse Republicans of political motivation. It appears that all justification for the hearing was provided independently by ActBlue’s own documentation.

In a 2023 letter to Congress, Wallace-Jones claimed ActBlue conducted “‘multilayered’ screenings of donations—a practice that supposedly “helped ‘root out’ those from overseas.” She also claimed donations from foreign mailing addresses were only accepted if a U.S. passport number was provided.

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It was ActBlue’s Covington & Burling law firm that determined “some of the steps [Wallace-Jones] had described were not always followed.” As reported by the New York Times, citing a law firm memo to ActBlue, donors using Apple Pay, PayPal, or Venmo were not asked to provide passport data.

The law firm forewarned there was “a substantial risk that some of the funds received were impermissible contributions from foreign nationals” and, as such, “This presents a substantial risk for ActBlue.” It also warned this could trigger a potential criminal investigation should prosecutors determine that ActBlue deliberately tried to hide the truth about not blocking foreign donations.

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Covington advised ActBlue to “explicitly correct the record” with Congress lest it “be alleged that ActBlue accepted and/or facilitated the acceptance of foreign-national contributions into American elections.” It was not until 2025 that ActBlue finally did so, sending a new letter to Congress reporting it “has recently implemented additional restrictions that will automatically reject contributions with indicators that they come from abroad, including contributions made through third-party payment processors.”

Accordingly, however, the hearing was no Republican witch hunt; it was a hearing clearly motivated as a result of communications involving non-Republican sources. Unfortunately for Jordan, every question he then put to Wallace-Jones met with the same non-response. Upon the advice of legal counsel—which she now suddenly accepted—she asserted her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.

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Jordan’s first question noted the acknowledgement by ActBlue’s board chairman that the organization had “accepted up to 38 million contributions in 2024 that had the signs of foreign origin.” Following up with the query “How much fraud is too much fraud,” Jordan received the same reply from Wallace-Jones.

Despite this, Jordan continued with a litany of additional questions including: “How many foreign contributions did ActBlue accept?...How much money did ActBlue accept from Russia?...Why did your entire legal team quit—your in-house legal team?...Did your legal team quit because of reduced fraud standards?” Realizing his effort was futile and will mandate a different approach, Jordan concluded with “We won’t keep you here all day but…just one more, Did you weaken fraud standards to help Democrats?”—a question triggering the same witness response.

The day she testified—or did not testify—before the committee, Wallace-Jones published an opinion piece in the Washington Post. She wrote that she intended to plead the Fifth as “Silence in response to bad-faith action is not retreat — it is a bedrock American right.” Unshared by her op-ed was that it is also a right exercised by those guilty of a crime but obviously not wishing to acknowledge the same by answering questions that would prove such if answered truthfully.

Based on ActBlue communications that include evidence provided by the organization’s own legal counsel and board chairman, the hearing Republicans called is not a “bad-faith action”—it is one demanded in order to determine the truth about whether ActBlue willfully and knowingly lied to Congress by accepting illegal contributions.

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