The House GOP Committee is issuing new subpoenas to ActBlue and is stepping up investigations into its democratic fundraising platform.
The subpoena is an attempt to force cooperation as Actblue pushed back the Congressional investigation and questioned its intentions and syntheticity after the White House launched a similar investigation.
James Comer (R-Ky.), Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) led a committee investigating ActBlue to issue a subpoena on Wednesday, ensuring that current and former employees testify about the platform’s anti-fraud policy.
The summoned employee voluntarily appeared before the committee to oppose it, citing the White House investigation earlier, and ActBlue sent a rebellious letter to the committee earlier this month, citing the investigation as partisan. In summoning employees, GOP lawmakers rejected Actblue’s claim that Congressional investigations were being conducted at the White House request for investigation.
Actblue denounced the Congressional investigation this month as “partisan efforts aimed at hurting political opponents rather than gathering facts to support legal efforts.” The platform and its democratic advocates argue that research into foreign donations and online fundraising should also include Republican largest fundraiser platform, Winred.
These democratic complaints were louder after President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate foreign straw donations in online funding in April. The survey is expected to reach the fall. And ActBlue was the only company on Trump’s orders.
However, in the new subpoena, GOP lawmakers argue that the committee is working well within its rights and that testimony from ActBlue can inform future campaign finance laws. They say the House investigation is unlike an investigation into the Trump order on the platform, with their committee not providing private information to the Justice Department.
The lawmakers also rejected Actblue’s claim that the Constitution would protect it from cooperation with the investigation.
“The Congress is free to choose which entities to investigate and how to monitor. The decision of the Congressional Committee to consider one entity is not to violate the Equality Protection Clause,” reads one of the subpoenas.
In a statement, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones attacked the summons as a “political theatre” “giving Shakespeare a run for his money.”
“The Republican-led committee has also not addressed Actblue’s legitimate concerns about partisan and parallel inquiries by separate branches of the government that are being played out against President Trump and Maga Republican political opponents,” Wallace-Jones said.
ActBlue previously provided documents to the GOP Committee. Voluntarily, some were under the subpoena. The Congressional committee asked for a voluntary interview with ActBlue employees in April, according to the latest subpoena, but the staff cited some of the Justice Department’s investigation.
Republicans frequently used the committee to follow Democratic officials, including mayors and governors. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating former President Joe Biden’s mental vision while in the White House, in a similar investigation by the Trump administration. Comer issued a subpoena to Biden’s doctors and asked many former Top White House aides to sit with the panel.
