Three Republican-led House committees investigating the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue are increasing their pressure on the organization, sending a letter demanding documents that the committees say ActBlue improperly withheld from a subpoena request.
The letter, sent on Tuesday to Regina Wallace-Jones, the ActBlue chief executive, follows reporting this month in The New York Times that revealed new details and documents at the center of an explosive episode in early 2025 that led to turmoil at the organization. The article detailed how lawyers for ActBlue warned the organization that it might have misled Congress in a 2023 letter explaining its vetting of donations from other countries. Almost all donations from foreign citizens are illegal in federal races.
The new letter from congressional Republicans states that the Times article suggested that ActBlue had obstructed the committees’ investigations, “including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”
The letter was signed by Representatives Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the House Administration Committee chairman; Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee chairman; and James R. Comer of Kentucky, the House Oversight Committee chairman.
ActBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
President Trump and congressional Republicans have pushed to investigate ActBlue in an apparent effort to undermine the Democratic Party’s main fund-raising vehicle, which powers the party’s candidates for offices ranging from school boards to the presidency. On Tuesday, the organization highlighted a haul of $568 million raised in the first quarter of 2026 for Democratic causes and campaigns.
Last year, Mr. Trump ordered the Justice Department to examine in part whether ActBlue had processed donations from people who are not U.S. citizens. Federal election law prohibits foreign citizens without permanent residency from donating directly to federal political candidates or political action committees.
Democrats, including ActBlue’s leadership, have denounced the Republican-led investigations as a political witch hunt, and have noted that Republicans have ignored the leading processor of G.O.P. donations, WinRed. Democrats have out-raised Republicans in small online contributions in recent years, helping to give the party a financial advantage in many races.
The Times article revealed that in February 2025, ActBlue was warned by the law firm Covington & Burling that a 2023 letter signed by Ms. Wallace-Jones and sent to a Republican congressional committee had created “a substantial risk for ActBlue.” Parts of the letter that described ActBlue’s vetting process for foreign donations were not necessarily correct, Covington wrote.
Covington did not identify any specific illegal contributions, and it suggested that the scope of any potential problems was unclear. Kimberly Peeler-Allen, the chairwoman of the ActBlue board of directors, said in an interview for the earlier Times article that “less than 1 percent” of contributions from the 2024 election cycle had signs that they were from foreign countries.
The Covington memos instigated a series of resignations by senior officials at the fund-raising organization and led to a parting of ways between the law firm and ActBlue.
Trump Administration: Live Updates
Updated
- Trump’s pick for Fed chair disclosed vast wealth ahead of his confirmation hearing.
- In Leo, Trump faces a different kind of papal opponent.
- U.S. military strikes another boat in Pacific, killing 2.
The Republican-led committees, in their letter, did not specifically demand the Covington memos, which are labeled “privileged and confidential, attorney client privilege, attorney work product.” Instead, they requested two other records mentioned in the Times article: a letter of resignation from Aaron Ting, who in early 2025 was an in-house ActBlue lawyer, and a Slack message from Zain Ahmad, who also worked in the organization’s legal department at the time, that warned that ActBlue’s leadership had retaliated against him.
The committees also requested documents relating “to the potential or actual use of ActBlue by foreign nationals to make political contributions” and anything “relating to ActBlue’s policies, practices or procedures for preventing, deterring or detecting political contributions by foreign nationals.”
The letter suggests that the committees will escalate pressure on ActBlue if the organization does not produce the documents.
“Given ActBlue’s demonstrated history of misleading Congress, there is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter states. “Therefore, it is imperative that ActBlue promptly produce all materials responsive to the committees’ subpoenas — including, but not limited to, the items above. Absent these steps, the committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas.”
The letter provides an April 28 deadline for ActBlue to comply.
ActBlue responded to the Times article by denying that it had done anything wrong and trying to reassure employees that the organization was on stable footing. Ms. Wallace-Jones, in an email to ActBlue’s staff members the day that the article published, asserted that she had not made false statements to Congress.
“Should your friends and family ask you about any internal chaos, you can say with your full chest: ActBlue is not an organization in crisis,” Ms. Wallace-Jones wrote.
In a Slack message to ActBlue employees the day the article published, Brian Levine, ActBlue’s head of product management, said a rogue former employee had leaked company documents. Mr. Levine assured employees that ActBlue would remain operational.
“Whatever may follow,” he wrote, “there is no scenario in which ActBlue is shut down.”
Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.
The post House Republicans Step Up Scrutiny of ActBlue Over Foreign Donations appeared first on New York Times.
