Sometimes Ken Paxton’s lawsuits are limited in size or scope. Not this one. Paxton is suing Democrat fundraiser ActBlue for allowing “fraudulent and foreign donations.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Democratic political fundraising platform ActBlue over its donation processes that allegedly “allow fraudulent and foreign donations.”
According to the New York Times, ActBlue has processed nearly $19 billion in contributions since its 2004 inception. The organization reported $1.8 billion in 2025 alone, a 41 percent increase compared to 2021. Last year, ActBlue saw 1.35 million new donors add to its over 52 million contributions received.
“The radical left has relied on ActBlue as a way to funnel foreign donations and dark money into their political campaigns to subvert our laws and compromise the integrity of our elections,” the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said in an April 20 press release.
Paxton alleged the organization has lied to Congress and “blatantly ignored state law that prohibits deceptive practices.”
“In 2023, Attorney General Paxton opened an investigation into whether ActBlue was enabling donor fraud in violation of Texas law,” the press release stated.
“ActBlue has cooperated with our ongoing investigation,” Paxton said in August 2024. “They have changed their requirements to now include ‘CVV’ codes for donations on their platform.”
“This is a critical change that can help prevent fraudulent donations,” he continued, adding that “suspicious activity on fundraising platforms must be fully investigated to determine if any laws have been broken.”
In October 2024, Paxton sent a petition for rulemaking to the FEC “detailing how suspicious actors had appeared to be continuing to use ActBlue’s political fundraising platform to make a large number of straw political donations,” the press release said. He also made a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice the same month.
“Amidst the OAG’s investigation and a Congressional investigation, ActBlue claimed it stopped its illegal operations,” the OAG said.
Paxton cited recent reporting from the New York Times in which “ActBlue’s own outside counsel acknowledged that the organization’s representations about its donation safeguards were not true.”
Paxton further alleged that certain safeguards are not consistently implemented, “creating a substantial risk that impermissible foreign contributions may have been processed.”
The OAG said it was able to show that ActBlue processes gift card and prepaid debit card donations, “despite the company’s representations that the opposite is true.” Paxton said these payments could enable fraudulent donations and violations of state and federal election laws due to limited identification requirements.
Reports have ActBlue carrying out the very shady, unethical actions Paxton is accusing them of, allowing foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns and enabling straw donations in the names of people who never donated to Democrats. Such accusations have been flying around almost as long ActBlue has existed, and the persistence of the same “mistakes” over and over again suggest such criminal activity is intentional.
Discovery for this lawsuit should be epic.
Tags: ActBlue, campaign finance fraud, Crime, Democrats, Elections, fraud, Ken Paxton, Lawsuit, Texas
From the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, dated April 20th:
“ActBlue employees invoked their Fifth Amendment right at least 146 times in depositions with congressional committees investigating alleged donor fraud on the fundraising platform, according to an explosive report released Monday.
Two ActBlue officials, one of whom formerly served as VP of customer service, and three of its former lawyers “declined to answer a single one of the Committees’ substantive questions,” stated the interim staff report from the House Administration, Oversight and Judiciary Committees.
“Their unwillingness to testify only amplifies the Committees’ concerns,” the report added of the depositions between July and December 2025, also citing ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Wells’ seemingly “false statements to Congress” and withholding of documents pursuant to a subpoena for records.”
Fun part is that if Act Blue employees take the Fifth in Paxson’s civil suit, the jury will be instructed that it can presume that the answer to the questions would have been good for the plaintiff and bad for the party asserting the Fifth. Such an “adverse inference” instruction is typically the kiss of death for a defendant.
And, of course, at any federal Rule 30(b)(6) (or Texas state equivalent), the witness can’t take the Fifth, as corporations and other legal entities have zero Fifth Amendment rights. And if Act Blue just refuses to answer proper questions at a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition, the remedies include striking their pleadings, which would then likely yield a default judgment that would bankrupt the SPLC.