Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) believes a cover-up is on-going that has allowed Democrats to take in untold amounts of money in the names of Americans who are unaware. The Kamala Harris campaign has collected more than $1 billion, a significant share coming through the Democratic Party’s fundraising platform ActBlue, RedState.com and others reported this week.
The Committee on House Administration, chaired by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin), this week issued a subpoena to ActBlue officials requesting “a series of documents and other communications related to donor security and verification,” The Hill reported. Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton last week filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing ActBlue of failing to adequately police its donors.
QUOTE: "We cannot allow foreign actors to influence our elections through campaign financing. The Committee’s investigation uncovered that foreign actors might be taking advantage of ActBlue’s inadequate security protocols …. Preventing foreign interference in U.S. elections has been my top priority as Chairman and this next step in our investigation is crucial to achieving that goal.” (Committee chairman Rep. Bryan Steil)
Johnson will be surprised if Paxton’s letter pushes the FEC to action. The senator said on Washington Watch Thursday that he’s been after the FEC about ActBlue for a long time.
The scam was first uncovered by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, back in March 2023, Johnson said. In light of O’Keefe’s work, Republican senators began to press the FEC.
“We kept following up week after week after week. They would never tell us whether they were even investigating this,” Johnson told show host Tony Perkins.
In September, Johnson was part of a secure briefing about foreign influence in the election with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and FBI Director Christopher Wray. It was also unproductive.
Top leaders avoid the questions
“I specifically asked them, ‘What are you doing about smurfing, about these massive numbers of donations,’ being funneled through individuals, without their knowledge, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in donations, totaling to hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates through ActBlue.
“The FBI director looked clueless. Whether he knew or not, he told me nothing about it; the DNI Haynes said nothing about it either,” Johnson recalled.
According to the GOP lawmaker, violations of this nature would be easy to see and to investigate. The next dot to connect is a likely cover-up of cash being funneled to Democrats by America’s enemies.
“We have reason to believe from an informant that suspicious activity reports have been filed with the Treasury Department about this,” Johnson said.
Yet there’s been no follow-up on the reports. It “appears” law enforcement “has turned a blind eye” to the reports, Johnson said.
“Quite honestly, this should not be a difficult thing to investigate. These are financial transactions, probably going through some kind of financial institution,” he added.
Criminal penalties for violating federal finance laws in a presidential campaign could include up to five years in prison and $50,000 in fines. For campaign groups it could mean the loss of registration and/or the revocation of tax-exempt status.
Some reports remained dormant inside the Treasury Department during Donald Trump’s administration, which indicates that lower-level employees are not passing key information up the chain of command, Johnson said.
“Some people in these agencies, highly partisan individuals, are just sitting on Suspicious Activity Reports that indicate problems with Democrat leaders,” he stated.
The reports are useful tools for weeding out lawlessness. For example, Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal was uncovered through Suspicious Activity Reports, Johnson said.
“From my standpoint we have to find out who made the donations, then who handled the donations. Somebody obviously in the ActBlue organization is aware of this. They have to look at this as odd themselves, but they’ve kept their mouths shut on this.”
The list of accountability, he explained, should be a long one. “It should be the donor, the people within ActBlue and – from my standpoint – it will be people inside the Treasury Department who have sat on these Suspicious Activity Reports and done nothing with them,” Johnson said.
How the sausage is made
It’s a scam with great depth and detail. Most often, large sums of money have been broken down into working-class donations ranging from $5-$20, Johnson said. But as much as $1.4 million has gone to one individual.
“I’ve seen the spreadsheets. There are a lot of people who have downloaded files; this is public information. There are tens and tens of thousands of these donations made,” Johnson said.
And donations have been made in the names of thousands of Americans who are totally unaware. “These individuals have been contacted by James O’Keefe and other investigators. They have no knowledge that in their name they have made literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations to Democrat candidates,” noted the senator.
“This should be a huge scandal – but I’ve been on this for well over a year and a half, and we couldn’t get anywhere with the FEC or the Department of Justice,” Johnson concluded.
