President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum Thursday aimed at investigating ActBlue, the leading Democratic fundraising platform.
The memorandum directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to “investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees, and to take appropriate action to enforce the law.”
It specifically names ActBlue as an online fundraising platform being used “to improperly influence American elections.”
A White House document accompanying the memo also suggested that ActBlue accepts donations in which donors evade federal limitations by breaking their contributions down into smaller ones and attributing them to numerous people.
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A spokesperson for ActBlue called Trump’s move a “brazen attack on democracy in America.”
“Today’s escalation by the White House is blatantly unlawful and needs to be seen for what it is: Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition. This Administration continues to weaponize the instruments of federal power in an unprecedented assault on our democracy,” the statement read, calling the administration’s claims against it “baseless.”
The spokesperson added that ActBlue plans to challenge the directive in court.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the executive memorandum.
ActBlue is the primary fundraising tool for Democratic candidates and, in many cases, the default donation option on Democratic campaign websites. It is widely considered one of the pillars of the party’s digital ecosystem.
The platform works as a conduit, facilitating individual donations for campaigns and nonprofit groups and taking a 3.95% processing fee on most donations.
Several Democratic groups, including the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, said in a joint statement that Trump’s memo is “designed to undermine democratic participation.”
“He knows Americans are already fed up with his chaotic agenda that is driving the economy off a cliff, so he’s trying to block lawful grassroots donations from supporters giving just $5 or $10 to candidates who oppose him while further empowering the corrupt billionaires who already control his administration,” the statement read.
Trump has made it a centerpiece of his second term to take actions against organizations, including law firms and universities, that he doesn’t perceive to be aligned with his agenda.
In the early months of the administration, Trump signed several executive orders either stripping lawyers at several major corporate law firms of their security clearances or forbidding them from working with the federal government.
The Trump administration has also sought to strip federal funding from universities like Harvard and Columbia for not complying with certain demands.
Early this month, the heads of three Republican-led House committees released a report detailing what they characterized as “illegal activity” on ActBlue and accused it of failing to take action against alleged fraud.
“ActBlue’s internal turmoil, lack of a functioning legal team, possible retaliatory actions, and failure to take fraud seriously raise new questions about the platform’s ability to deter fraud and comply with federal election law,” the three GOP lawmakers said in a joint statement accompanying their report.
Trump’s memo cites that report as evidence that ActBlue has allowed “significant fraud campaigns” on its platform.
Meanwhile, Trump ally Elon Musk has repeatedly blasted ActBlue on his social media platform, X. On March 8, for example, he appeared to suggest that “ActBlue-funded groups” were behind the recent wave of nationwide protests against his electric vehicle company, Tesla.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The post Trump takes executive action targeting ActBlue, the main Democratic fundraising platform appeared first on NBC News.
