Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares raised concerns to ActBlue, the Democratic National Committee’s donor platform, over “suspicious” donations made in “volumes” that seem “facially implausible.”
In a letter on Friday, Miyares called for ActBlue to provide his office “with a detailed description” of the company’s “processes and procedures for verifying the legitimacy and accuracy of donor and contribution information,” after his office had become aware of “hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions” made by “individual donors” in large amounts that appear to be “suspicious.”
“My office has become aware of multiple serious allegations that ActBlue, ActBlue Civics, Inc., and ActBlue Charities, Inc. (together ‘ActBlue’) have engaged in fraudulent, deceptive, and/or otherwise illegal activities in the Commonwealth of Virginia and/or have aided and abetted others in doing so,” Miyares wrote in the letter.
“This includes hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions through individual donors in the Commonwealth in volumes that are facially implausible and appear suspicious,” Miyares continued. “Some of these Virginia donors are reported as making multiple daily contributions over the course of multiple years amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in aggregate.”
Miyares noted that some of the donations that had been made were from senior citizens who had listed “their occupation as ‘not employed’ or ‘retired,'” or used “suspicious addresses.”
“Taken together, these circumstances appear to indicate that contributions via ActBlue are being made from fictional donors or dummy accounts, or that information reported by or through ActBlue may be fraudulent,” Mirayes continued. “Alternatively, these circumstances may indicate that contributions via ActBlue are being made without the reported donors’ consent or awareness.”
The letter from Miyares comes after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) appeared on Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s podcast, and spoke about how ActBlue allows people to “donate thousands” without having to enter their CVV code.
“On the back of everyone’s credit card, we get asked for it all the time, there’s this code called the CVV code, and it allows you to track that account and where it’s located,” Rubio said. “WinRed uses it. Everybody else uses it. But you can donate money….thousands and thousands of dollars to ActBlue without your CVV code.”
Rubio added that he wants to pass a law that will require online donations made with credit cards to provide a CVV.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey have also reportedly announced investigations into the fundraising platform.