Thread by @JudiciaryGOP

🚨 Fraud on ActBlue: How The Democrats’ Top Fundraising platform Opens the Door for illegal election Contributions

🧵 THREAD:

@JudiciaryGOP @HouseAdmin and @GOPoversight have been investigating ActBlue.

Today, we’re releasing our preliminary findings: ActBlue made its fraud-prevention rules “more lenient” twice in 2024—even though there is extensive fraud on the platform, including from foreign sources.

In April 2024, ActBlue weakened its fraud-prevention standards “across the board,” taking “a more lenient approach” to stopping fraudulent donations.

ActBlue admitted that this change led to between 14 and 28 additional fraudulent contributions in the first month alone—potentially totaling thousands of dollars in fraudulent contributions to Democrat campaigns and causes.

Then, in September 2024, ActBlue did it again, instituting a policy change that it knew would “increase[e] our risk tolerance” for fraud.

It did this even though ActBlue’s top fraud-prevention staffer assessed that a main indicator of fraud—known as the Sift score—was “the highest it [had] ever been and appear[ed] to be climbing further.”

Even before these policy changes, ActBlue staff were told to accept as much fraud as possible.

ActBlue’s training guide told new fraud-prevention employees to “give our donors the benefit of the doubt” rather than look at transactions with a discerning and skeptical eye.

In another meeting, fraud-prevention staff were told to “look for reasons to accept” potentially fraudulent contributions.

Internal performance reviews of ActBlue’s fraud-prevention staff tell the same story. In these reviews, ActBlue staff were told that they should have accepted donations with clear signs of fraudulence like the ones below.

Instead of trying to stop fraud, ActBlue promoted DEI.

At the beginning of 2024, ActBlue’s top fraud-prevention employee informed ActBlue leadership that he intended to “focus on DEI work” in the upcoming year.

In the very same document, the top fraud-prevention employee informed them that his primary goal for 2024 was “not allowing more than 10 [percent] additional missed fraud.”

All of this despite the fact that fraud on ActBlue was already rampant.

Since 2020, ActBlue has detected at least 22 significant fraud campaigns—including nine from foreign sources.

Bad actors from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Jordan, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia sought to donate to Democrat campaigns and causes.

ActBlue even admits that its weak policies could permit fraudulent donations to continue to flow to Democrat campaigns and causes.

In one internal policy document, ActBlue’s fraud-prevention team wrote that “hypothetically if someone could coordinate a big attack where each individual donation fell below the [fraud review] threshold, they would go through.”

You can read our newest report on ActBlue here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…

This staff report is not the end of our investigation. We’re also asking for transcribed interviews with current ActBlue employees—including the ones responsible for ActBlue’s fraud-prevention operation—and reviewing suspicious activity reports (SARs) of fraud on ActBlue.

Americans have a right to free and fair elections without illegal foreign interference. We won’t stop until that is the case.

Read more here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…