Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Friday that he is demanding answers from Democrat PAC ActBlue over how it verifies donor information in the wake of suspicious donor activity flagged by conservatives.
In the letter sent Monday, Miyares, a Republican, said accusations aimed at ActBlue stem from instances of "hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions through individual donors in the Commonwealth in volumes that are facially implausible and appear suspicious."
Virginia was one of several states that uncovered suspicious donations, the Washington Examiner reported.
"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," Miyares wrote. "Alternatively, these circumstances may indicate that contributions via ActBlue are being made without the reported donors' consent or awareness."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., recently surfaced concerns in a podcast with Turning Point Action founder Charlie Kirk, calling ActBlue "a money-laundering operation." Rubio first called for a Federal Election Commission investigation into ActBlue in April 2023.
"It's a deliberate strategy on their part," Rubio told Kirk. "If they had to use that code from their credit card, their donations would go."
Newsweek reported that ActBlue had an option to enter a Card Verification Value on Friday when donating.
Kirk last week posted to X that "one person in Virginia has been named in 22,619 separate donations since 2019, totaling more than $800,000. Obviously, she's being exploited for some kind of money-laundering operation."
Miyares responded three days later in a post: "My office is aware of these allegations and rest assured, we are looking into it."
For its part, ActBlue released a statement Friday saying that Miyares' letter "lent the credibility of their office to a years-long disinformation and harassment campaign."
"This investigation is nothing more than a partisan political attack and scare tactic to undermine the power of Democratic and progressive small-dollar donors," read the fundraising platform's statement, picked up by multiple media outlets. "We welcome the opportunity to respond to these frivolous claims."
Miyares' letter comes days after Democratic presumptive nominee Kamala Harris announced a fundraising haul of $310 million in July.
Miyares gave ActBlue until Aug. 12 to respond.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.