Cleaning up campaign donations or political payback?

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate online campaign fundraising. He specifically told her to scrutinize ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s online giving platform. It’s not the first time Republicans have taken aim at the fundraising behemoth, but Democrats are now accusing the president of attacking his political opponents.

What is ActBlue? The grassroots fundraising company was created in 2004 to process small donations to political campaigns. At the time, the organization offered the easiest way for voters to send money online to Democrats. It saves credit card information, and the website rarely crashes even when contributions surge after a major event, such as the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. Major donors generally send their money directly to super political action committees, but most donations under $200 come in through ActBlue. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was the first major Democratic presidential candidate to fundraise primarily through ActBlue rather than super PACs. By 2020, 21,000 Democratic candidates nationwide used ActBlue, including every presidential candidate.

What is the White House’s complaint? The Trump administration has accused the platform of accepting straw donations, or money from donors who pay on behalf of a foreign entity. U.S. law prohibits federal campaigns from accepting funds from non-U.S. citizens. The Federal Election Commission investigates instances in which a spouse or American living overseas might be using his or her name to pour foreign money from other entities into U.S. elections in small batches. In an April 24 memo, Trump directed the Treasury and Justice departments to investigate alleged straw donations sent through ActBlue. He cited 237 donations from foreign IP addresses in a 30-day period last year. ActBlue has called the claims baseless. In a statement, several Democratic groups accused Trump of targeting ActBlue for political purposes.

Is ActBlue secure? In December, several Democratic consultants and staffers signed an open letter telling ActBlue to boost its security measures to protect donors from exploitation. ActBlue already admitted to detecting at least 22 “significant fraud campaigns,” some of which originated overseas. Internal documents showed a likely scam operation using small dollar amounts. The platform only recently began requiring a card verification value (CVV) for credit card transactions as an added layer of security after lobbying against a Republican-sponsored bill to require CVVs for all political donations.

Is there a double standard? In 2019, Republicans built WinRed by merging two GOP organizations into a for-profit platform to copy ActBlue’s success. But it is not as widely used for Republican campaigns as ActBlue is for Democratic ones, nor has it made as much money. In 2024, ActBlue raised a record $1 billion for Democratic candidates, while WinRed raised $600 million. Last year, WinRed rejected about 36 contributions, most of which were paid with cryptocurrency. But Trump did not name the platform in his executive order.

The Associated Press reported this week that it found 1,000 contributions to the Trump campaign sent from 150 donors who did not provide full identity verification details. Some listed their addresses as “999 Anonymous Dr.” or an abandoned building in Washington, D.C. According to federal records, Chinese businessman Jiajun “Jack” Zhang donated $5,000 to Trump. He listed his address as a La Quinta hotel in California, but business records show he is a Chinese citizen. Nnenna Peters, the wife of a Nigerian billionaire, gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. In the past, she had only donated to Democrats. Watchdog groups complained that it’s possible her husband donated using her name since Peters is an American citizen.