Allegations of fraud and sponsorship of terrorism-linked organizations have enveloped the Democratic Party fundraising platform ActBlue, which could soon be facing criminal prosecution as lawmakers urge the Trump administration to investigate the organization.

Founded in 2004, ActBlue is a payment processing organization that is used by Democratic political campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels to raise funds, having brought in over $16 billion over the last two decades. Concerns over the practices of the organization have been raised since at least 2023, when Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and then-Senator Marco Rubio warned that ActBlue did not require donors to provide the three-digit security code on the back of credit cards, which they noted raised the risk of fraudulent and unverifiable donations to be made. After ActBlue added the security code verification to their website, observers pointed out that funds could still be donated through untraceable methods like PayPal, Google Pay, and Venmo as well as prepaid gift cards.

Then in October of last year, ActBlue was subpoenaed by a House committee over evidence that the platform may have been used by foreign actors such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela to funnel donations by exploiting the IDs of existing U.S. donors without their knowledge (known as “smurfing”), which breaks down large amounts of money into hundreds or thousands of smaller donations of $5, $10, $15, or $20.

ActBlue’s troubles mounted further last week, when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the Treasury Department demanding an investigation into the organization over its alleged handling of “payments that could support terror.” Issa cited two terror-linked entities, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). As noted by The Free Press, PACBI is based in the region of Judea and Samaria and is “a founding member of the BDS National Committee, which has included a Palestinian coalition represented by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.” The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights has also been linked to the BDS National Committee.

ActBlue’s terror ties extend beyond Issa’s letter, the Washington Examiner reported Monday. “The Arab Resource and Organizing Center and [USCPR] helped organize the People’s Conference for Palestine in May 2024, a conference endorsed by Salah Salah, a founding member of the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], while soliciting funds through ActBlue. The U.S. designated the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. … [It] has hijacked planes, carried out suicide attacks, besieged synagogues, and bombed civilians, among other violent acts, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”

The Democratic fund has also been tied to organizations that praised the October 7 Hamas terror attack that killed 1,200 Israelis as well as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee, a coalition that includes terrorist organizations.

During Friday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” Article III Project Senior Counsel Will Chamberlain observed that officials within ActBlue are beginning to exit the organization. “[N]ow that people are investigating it, something like seven or eight senior ActBlue officials have simply left the organization. The lawyers are leaving the organization. This is rats fleeing a sinking ship.”

Chamberlain went on to explain the significance of how smurfing can give political campaigns a massive illegal advantage over their competition.

“[I]f you have one donor who wants to give hard money to a campaign, [say] half a million in hard money, they’re not allowed to do that under our law,” he explained. “You can only give something like $2,600 a person. … [I]f you want to give a half million [dollars], normally you have to give it to a PAC or something. But if you have a way to pretend that this half million was actually from 250 small donors on ActBlue, then all of a sudden you’ve magically created half a million in hard money. … I’ve worked on campaigns before. Hard money is like gold. There’s just so little of it, and the scarcity of hard money is kind of what keeps campaign staff small and limits the ability of campaigns to do what they want to do. So if ActBlue has been … essentially creating straw donors [who] set up fake small donors to allow big money to come in behind their candidates, I mean, that’s a massive scandal.”

Chamberlain predicted that ActBlue and Democratic politicians who benefited from the platform could be held criminally liable if the allegations prove to be true.

“ActBlue itself would get shut down, and it could be a criminal defendant,” he surmised. “I mean, you could actually charge the organization criminally. The board legally exposed all the senior officers. … [I]f the campaigns didn’t know about it, they’re probably not criminally liable, but [there is] still probably some FEC … requirement that they return some of the monies. … And if there were knowing plots to exploit the vulnerabilities I just talked about, then there’s criminal liability for the politicians in their campaigns as well.”