In early 2025, the law firm, Covington & Burling out of Washington DC, raised legal concerns that ActBlue’s CEO lied to GOP investigators in a 2023 letter explaining how the organization vetted donations to ensure that they were not illegally coming from foreign citizens.
This shocking development was published in The New York Times this week.
Laura Ingraham and Chip Roy discussed this latest ActBlue scandal on Thursday night.
Heads should roll! pic.twitter.com/zSNUz7rHdy
— Karli Bonne’ (@KarluskaP) April 2, 2026
** The Gateway Pundit Was First to Report on Democrat Money Laundering Using ActBlue – President Trump Called for an Investigation – The Seditious Six Now Implicated
In early December 2022, after the 2022 election, we were the first to report on what we labeled “voter mules”. These were individuals who made sometimes thousands of donations to Democrat politicians across the country, totaling up to millions of fraudulent donations. “Preacher” Raphael Warnock received $24 million from hundreds of unemployed donors, giving over 358,000 donations.
(The Internet Sleuth behind this effort was Chris Gleason.)
In April, President Trump ordered an investigation into the unlawful Voter Mule activity using ActBlue in April.
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has allegedly benefitted from ActBlue “Smurfing” operations, including 12 donors responsible for identical contributions totalling over $2.4 million
TGP’s Brian Lupo reported more on this fraud scheme in December 2024.
ActBlue and other campaign donation platforms are at the center of an investigation being conducted by at least 20 State’s attorneys general, as well as the House Administration Committee in Congress. It is also the subject of a lawsuit in Waukesha County, where earlier this month a judge allowed limited discovery into ActBlue to proceed.
The colloquial term used to describe this alleged operation is “smurfing.” Peter Bernegger, Chris Gleason, Phil Allison, and their team discovered this suspected campaign money laundering operation and went public with it in 2023 when James O’Keefe’s OMG published videos interviewing suspected victims of this scheme.
According to the FEC.gov website, there are potentially thousands upon thousands of individuals whose identities are being stolen to launder millions of dollars to political campaigns and PACs across the country. This scheme can be verified by anyone:
Simply go to FEC.gov.
Under “Campaign Finance Data”, select “Look up contributions from specific individuals.”
Put “ActBlue” as the “Recipient Name”
Select a zip code or city you’d like to search
Under “Occupation” put “retired”
Uncheck the Report Time Period box or expand it to the date range you’d like to check
The last step is to click “Export” in the top right hand corner. This will download the data in a spreadsheet format. When you open it up, sort the data by name. Each contribution in this alleged scheme is typically under $5.
On Friday, Bernegger joined the Why We Vote podcast to discuss the recent reports that have come out of Congress via Rep. Bryan Steil and Rep. Jim Jordan. According to subpoenaed records from ActBlue, Just The News reported that ActBlue updated its policy on Sept 9th to “automatically reject donations that use foreign prepaid/gift cards, domestic gift cards, are from high-risk/sanctioned countries, and have the highest level of risk as determined,” by its solution provider, Sift.
Bernegger had several crucial updates regarding their own investigation into this money-laundering scheme regarding an automated process to make the donations, why ActBlue’s policy update likely won’t have any impact on any accounts established before the change, and whether or not the incoming Trump administration will engage in this investigation.
New Smurf Evidence
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) raised approximately $30.9 million in her 2018 campaign. Her 2024 campaign, however, trounced that number, nearly doubling it to $59.6 million. From July 25, 2024 to September 30, 2024, she raised $11 million with $9.4 million coming from individual ‘donors,’ according to WPR.
By comparison, her opponent, Eric Hovde, raised just $29.3 million with $20 million of that being a personal loan he made to his campaign. In that same July to September timeframe, Hovde raised $2.8 million from individual donors.
Using state and federal government data, Bernegger has publicly accused Baldwin of benefiting from the illegal smurfing operation. According to his data and investigation, Baldwin has received $27,850,750 via the smurfing operation since 2017, including 69,433 donations since 2017 from a single donor, “Sonia.” “Sonia” lives in an assisted living facility, but that didn’t stop her from allegedly donating 7.5 times per day, every single day, for 7.5 years.
For years Democrats were suspected of using foreign donations to finance their campaigns. According to the FEC.gov website, there are potentially thousands upon thousands of individuals whose identities are being stolen to launder millions of dollars to political campaigns and PACs across the country.
It now looks like ActBlue may be in some serious trouble. It’s about time.
Maybe the new Attorney General will take this on?
The post Developing: Democrat Fundraising Juggernaut ActBlue Likely Lied to Congress About Foreign Donations appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.