ActBlue Board Member Invokes Fifth Amendment During House Investigation into Foreign Donations

<p>Kimberly Peeler-Allen, a board member of the ActBlue Democratic fundraising organization, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself while testifying during a House investigation into alleged foreign donations to ActBlue, according to sources familiar with the testimony.</p><p>Peeler-Allen's appearance on Capitol Hill occurred amidst a joint investigation by the House Administration, Judiciary, and Oversight Committees into allegations that ActBlue accepted illicit foreign donations and failed to prevent fraud.</p><p>Peeler-Allen's decision to plead the Fifth follows the same action taken by ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergalis, who pleaded the Fifth during his closed-door deposition in front of the same three committees on August 20.</p><p>The Committee on House Administration first opened an investigation into ActBlue in 2023. Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., claimed the organization could potentially be accepting foreign or fraudulent donations by neglecting to require a credit card CVV number for contributions.</p><p>Steil expressed concern over the refusal of ActBlue-affiliated individuals to cooperate with the investigation. "I've been frustrated that individuals [in] ActBlue haven't answered our questions on the record," he stated in an interview. "We've had individuals come, in public testimony, and plead the Fifth. They have a right to do that. And I understand why they did that. But I think the American people deserve to know exactly what's going on. We have an entity here with ActBlue that has raised roughly $20 billion since its creation and moved that into Democratic campaigns and Democratic causes. We want to make sure that they have the fraud prevention protocols in place to ensure that foreign funds are not coming into U.S. elections," he added.</p><p>Responding to allegations that the investigation into ActBlue is partisan, Steil refuted the notion. He stated, "This investigation began as a review of online fundraising platforms and a determination of whether those platforms had fraud prevention programs in place to prevent foreign funds from coming into U.S. elections. One of those, ActBlue, has been called out by The New York Times for having misled or lied to Congress. We're trying to get to the bottom of exactly what has been taking place inside ActBlue, per the public reporting."</p><p>In an April investigative report, The New York Times revealed that ActBlue's legal counsel advised the organization that, in a letter to House Republicans, ActBlue's chief executive Regina Wallace-Jones may have misled lawmakers. Responding to a congressional inquiry, Wallace-Jones characterized the organization's screening process to ensure its donations were not foreign as "multilayered," according to the report. However, the Times noted that ActBlue's counsel advised them that they didn't always follow the steps Wallace-Jones described in her letter, calling her response "a substantial risk for ActBlue." Wallace-Jones also pleaded the Fifth during her deposition to Steil's committee in June.</p><p>Fox News Digital contacted ActBlue for further comment.</p>