ICYMI – Issa Calls for Investigation Into ActBlue

Excerpts from The Free Press Exclusive by Gabe Kaminsky: Amid Turmoil, ActBlue Faces Call for Terror-Financing Investigation

A top lawmaker has asked the Trump administration to investigate “credible allegations” that ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, violated federal law in allowing terrorism-linked groups to use its services.

In a letter sent to the Treasury Department on Tuesday—and obtained by The Free Press—Republican Congressman Darrell Issa called it “imperative” that the agency look into whether “ActBlue Charities had reason to know it was handling payments that could support terror.” Issa, the vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, zeroed in on ActBlue’s ties to two organizations: the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, or PACBI, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Neither ActBlue Charities, nor its parent ActBlue, “have any reliable process to vet users of their platforms for links to terrorism, simply ignore their obligations under the law, and are actively abetting this collaboration,” Issa, a California Republican, wrote in the letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“Terror financing is an extremely serious crime, and organizations cannot be given a free pass for failed due diligence, or worse, the enabling of terrorism,” the congressman said, adding that he hopes new Treasury leadership will conduct a review of the fundraising “to determine whether ActBlue or ActBlue Charities have violated relevant criminal statutes.”

This is not the first time Issa has called for administration action against ActBlue. In 2023, he asked Treasury and the FBI to investigate ActBlue over the software company previously allowing PACBI to fundraise on its platform. Just weeks before that request, ActBlue took the unusual step of cutting ties with PACBI—claiming the group was not in compliance with ActBlue policies.  Based in the West Bank, PACBI is a founding member of the BDS National Committee, which has included a Palestinian coalition represented by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

“Despite the detailed reporting and the reasonable suspicion that our nation’s laws had been violated, the Biden-Harris Treasury Department refused to substantively address these explosive revelations,” Rep. Issa told Bessent in the letter on Tuesday.

“The undeniable and continued collaboration between ActBlue Charities and terror-tied entities amounts to the enabling of terrorism and may also constitute money-laundering crimes,” Issa said.

Article by Gabe Kaminsky, 3/11/25, The Free Press, ActBlue Faces Call for Terror-Financing Investigation