The leaders of three Republican Home committees threatened Monday to carry Democratic fundraising powerhouse ActBlue in contempt of Congress after the agency refused to show over greater than 400 paperwork, citing attorney-client privilege.
A letter from Home Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) gave ActBlue till Friday to supply the messages, together with statements by two members of its authorized crew indicating the fundraiser was not being forthcoming about abroad donations that had been illegally funneled to Democratic campaigns.
“These paperwork reportedly include proof that ActBlue accepted overseas donations, misled Congress, after which retaliated in opposition to an worker who spoke up about it,” the lawmakers wrote. “ActBlue seems to be withholding these paperwork from the Committees in an try and cowl up the scope and length of its misconduct.”
ActBlue interim common counsel Aaron Ting resigned his publish in February 2025 following a name involving ActBlue management and outdoors counsel, warning the fundraiser was “not absolutely dedicated to transparently addressing with the Board the seriousness of our most urgent issues: the authorized compliance of ActBlue’s previous practices for screening political donations from overseas and its previous representations to Congress concerning overseas donations and associated issues.”
Days later, ActBlue’s lone full-time lawyer, Zain Ahmad, claimed in an inner Slack message that “he was retaliated in opposition to for blowing the whistle on inner misconduct,” based on the lawmakers.
The drama involving Ting and Ahmad was first reported in April by the New York Occasions.
“On June 5, ActBlue belatedly produced a log of responsive supplies that it deemed privileged, however refused to provide Mr. Ting’s resignation letter or Mr. Ahmad’s message. As an alternative, ActBlue claimed attorney-client privilege over everything of those and 420 different paperwork,” wrote Steil, Jordan and Comer.
“The Committees battle to know how Mr. Ting’s resignation letter or Mr. Ahmad’s inner message may very well be privileged. Neither doc might have been ‘made for the aim of acquiring or offering authorized recommendation,’ “they added. “Based mostly on out there proof and customary sense, the aim of Mr. Ting’s resignation letter was to terminate his employment with ActBlue, and the aim of Mr. Ahmad’s message was to make a declare of retaliation in opposition to ActBlue. As such, each paperwork had been ready and transmitted by these attorneys within the context of an employee-employer dispute with ActBlue, and never in an attorney-client context for function of offering authorized recommendation.”
Monday’s letter follows a June 10 look earlier than Congress by ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, throughout which she took the Fifth Modification and declined to reply questions.
ActBlue has helped Democratic campaigns and causes elevate greater than $19 billion because it was based in 2004.
Practically $2 billion of these funds flowed to Democrats in the course of the 2024 election cycle, on the similar time that inner information, later obtained by The Submit, confirmed ActBlue made its fraud requirements “extra lenient.”
