By Mike Huckabee
October 2, 2024
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Journalist and videographer James O’Keefe, who now runs his own company called O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), has been working for many months with the help of citizen journalists in a number of states to document what sure looks to be political money laundering on the part of “the” huge Democrat fundraising platform called ActBlue. If you’ve given money to Democrat candidates, including the Harris-Walz campaign --- we’re speaking hypothetically, of course! --- a donation with your name on it likely was funneled through ActBlue.
The question is, can ActBlue use your name as a cover for donations made by somebody else? Somebody who couldn’t give the money legally? I know it’s hard to believe that the Democrat Party would cheat like that (ha) before an election, but that’s what appears to be happening here.
AMERICAN GREATNESS has been following this story and noted in April that OMG had teamed with Election Watch and other investigative journalists to track “what appears to be illegal activity involving millions of dollars in campaign donations to ActBlue that have been laundered through unwitting small donors.” You and I call it old-fashioned money laundering, but a new and more specific term for this shady practice is “smurfing,” perhaps a reference to the color blue, emblematic of Democrats. (Hey, maybe election cheating in general should be called that.) The time period they’ve been covering includes the Biden presidential campaign of 2020.
In November 2023, the Committee on House Administration, chaired by Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil, opened an investigation into ActBlue based on reports that that they were skirting campaign laws and allowing rampant fraud on their site. Since then, his committee has analyzed more than 200 million political contributions (!) and found potential criminal activity.
They widened their investigation in August of this year, with Steil writing the Federal Election Commission to urge them to issue an “emergency rulemaking” requiring campaigns to verify online contributions done with a credit or debit card and prohibiting them from accepting donations charged to gift cards or other prepaid cards.
Steil then sent letters to the attorneys general of five states --- Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Florida and Missouri; all Republican AGs --- urging them to launch criminal investigations into ActBlue. “This investigation focused on potential unlawful exploitation of unwitting ‘straw donors,’ whose identities may have been used to channel illicit funds into campaigns in your state,” he wrote to them. “The final analysis produced a set of anomalous donor profiles, ranked by the severity of the inconsistencies. In reviewing this analysis, it became clear there was suspicious activity occurring that warrants further review.”
In his letters, Steil noted three different likely tip-offs to illegal activity that his own investigation had turned up time and time again:
1. Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth and/or previous giving history
2. Donations from party-affiliated registered voters who are suddenly giving to candidates of the opposing party
3. Unusually frequent donations from elderly or first-time donors
O’Keefe’s “citizen journalists” went to towns in which this type of giving had been found and started knocking on doors of folks on the voter rolls who were listed in FEC records as large or frequent campaign donors. They found mostly retired people of very modest means who knew they hadn’t been making donation after donation after donation as the records showed. In fact, it would’ve been impossible to do so --- sometimes even physically impossible to make that many phone calls! This had to be someone else’s money being given secretly, using their names to make it look legit.
The group of 5 Republican AGs has now grown into a coalition of 19, all of which have joined the criminal investigation into ActBlue. And on Tuesday, they all signed a letter to ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones demanding key information, which we’ll summarize:
1. Confirmation that ActBlue requires CVV numbers for all donations made with a credit card
(Note: the CVV number is that three-digit security code on the back of your card. ActBlue has historically not used these, and that makes fraud easier to pull off.)
https://www.howtogeek.com/728199/what-is-a-cvv-number-on-a-credit-card/
2. The date ActBlue started requiring CVV numbers, and the circumstances surrounding that
3. Confirmation that ActBlue requires a legitimate address tied to the credit or debit card used
4. An explanation of how ActBlue ensures that all donors are legally allowed to donate to that particular election
5. An explanation of whether and how ActBlue’s operations are consistent with industry standards for secure processing of such transactions
6. A description of how ActBlue complies with certain laws, including whether they follow FEC guidelines for identifying the nationality of donors
7. A description of how ActBlue facilitates automatic recurring donations, making sure donors don’t contribute more than they meant to
So after many months of an investigation started by lowly “citizen journalists,” this case is now getting some serious, official attention. As the AGs wrote to ActBlue, “It is essential that we know whether political donations – particularly in such large volumes --- are being solicited, made and processed consistent with campaign finance, consumer protection, and other state and federal laws.”
“...Just as important, we ask for clarification as to what measures you take to make sure that the donors identified as donating via the ActBlue platform are who they claim…”
O’Keefe’s website offers examples of the kind of thing that’s apparently been done through the ActBlue platform, such as the Texas woman, Barbara Staples, who was shocked to find out that ActBlue had her listed for making 1,600 donations totaling $13,000, including 53 transactions in a single day. (The website doesn’t name the candidate or candidates who received this money.)
And then there’s Angi Jones, who, after seeing an OMG video about this practice, searched the FEC website --- which lists all donors to campaigns --- and was shocked to see that her Republican parents had “donated” 30 times to Bernie Sanders through ActBlue. Angi’s mom, Alberta Jones, has donated to campaigns before, but certainly not that one. She is a Trump supporter who has primarily supported Trump Save America. She can show in her bank records that she did not make those donations to Bernie Sanders. No way, no how.
So this must’ve been quite a shocker, to both Angi and her mom. “I feel violated,” Alberta said. And indeed, she has been. It appears this sort of thing has been happening on a massive scale.
Finally, a word about Texas: There appears to be a dicey situation regarding this case in the Texas Attorney General’s Office that we hope is resolved soon. O’Keefe’s sources stated, “Attorney General Ken Paxton isn’t fully aware of the investigation, as [First Assistant Brent] Webster has been withholding information and updates.” They say ActBlue has hired attorney Paul Singer to represent them in Texas, and he’s allegedly a friend of Brent Webster. (Coincidence?) There’s probably a lot more to the story than that, personal and professional stuff that we’ll leave alone. But we hope Paxton, a good guy and a friend, is getting up to speed on this, because Texas is such a major part of the case, the biggest state involved.
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