House Republicans demand ActBlue lawyer testify over foreign donor vetting review

House Republicans are demanding testimony from an attorney for ActBlue, accusing him of defending the Democratic fundraising platform’s foreign donor screening practices with findings that conflict with internal documents.In a letter on Monday to WilmerHale partner Ronald Machen, Chairmen Bryan Steil (R-WI), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and James Comer (R-KY) requested a transcribed interview about CEO Regina Wallace-Jones’s prior statements to Congress concerning passport collection and donor outreach. Wallace-Jones pleaded her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination 22 times during her separate June 10 interview before the House Administration Committee. “Assertions you made in your briefing—and later repeated in the ‘white paper’ you authored—appear to contradict information in documents in the possession of the Committees,” they wrote.The Washington Examiner contacted Machen and a press contact for ActBlue but did not immediately receive a response.The demand follows Machen’s Sept. 11 briefing he provided to the GOP-led committees defending Wallace-Jones’s November 2023 description of ActBlue’s safeguards. Republicans argue his review excluded important evidence, including ActBlue’s changes to its own vetting practices during 2024.ActBlue has long drawn scrutiny from conservatives over allegations that inadequate safeguards permit fraudulent or potentially unlawful foreign donations. The platform disputes those allegations and describes the investigation as politically motivated.In a Sept. 16 response, ActBlue said its review found that 99.99% of nearly $990 million in 2023 political contributions came from donors who provided a U.S. address or passport number.“The results completely debunk the claims made against us,” ActBlue said.Republicans contend internal procedures undermine that defense. According to their letter, employees could use alternative methods to verify citizenship and enter placeholders such as “ACTBLUEXX” in passport fields, allowing subsequent donations without requiring a passport number.The chairmen contrasted Machen’s conclusions with a late-2024 review by then-outside counsel Dana Remus, a former White House counsel in the Biden administration.Citing a New York Times report from April, they said Remus identified a “substantial risk” of foreign contributions and questioned the accuracy of Wallace-Jones’s assurances.“Your review appears to be nothing more than an after-the-fact sugarcoating of ActBlue’s misconduct and Ms. Wallace-Jones’s misrepresentations to the House Administration Committee,” the chairmen wrote.While she did not agree to answer any questions before the committee on June 10, Wallace-Jones used a video statement to accuse Republicans of “abusing their power to target ActBlue” and said her decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment was not an admission of wrongdoing.MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL INVESTIGATES ACTBLUE OVER CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING FRAUDRepublicans’ inquiry into ActBlue has stretched across years of document requests, reports, and testimony demands. Republicans issued subpoenas in July last year and threatened contempt proceedings more recently in June, yet are still seeking records and explanations weeks before the midterm elections.You can read the full letter to Machen below: