Miyares targets Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue • Virginia Mercury

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Friday that he is suing online Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue for potentially inappropriate activity, without providing detailed evidence of what he believes the organization did wrong.

ActBlue dismissed the attorney general’s allegations as “false” and politically motivated.

In a letter sent to XMiyares has made numerous accusations about questionable donations made through the service, which serves as an intermediary between small donors and a variety of Democratic candidates and causes.

“This includes hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from individual donors across the Commonwealth, the volumes of which are apparently implausible and appear suspicious,” Miyares wrote. “Some of these Virginia donors allegedly made multiple daily contributions over multiple years, totaling tens of thousands of dollars.”

The attorney general demanded “a detailed description of ActBlue’s processes and procedures for verifying the legitimacy and accuracy of donor and contribution information, as well as the processes and procedures used to verify information reported to regulators.”

“Given the seriousness of these allegations, I look forward to receiving your substantive response by August 12, 2024,” Miyares concluded.

In A declarationActBlue said Miyares was perpetuating disinformation in order to attack his political opponents.

“This investigation is nothing more than a partisan political attack and a scare tactic aimed at undermining the power of small Democratic and progressive donors,” ActBlue said. “We welcome the opportunity to respond to these frivolous allegations.”

ActBlue has faced similar accusations from conservative activists in the past, but Campaign finance experts say Those allegations are exaggerated and based in part on quirks in how the Federal Election Commission reports small donations made through ActBlue and WinRed, its GOP fundraising counterpart.

It’s unclear what prompted Miyares to target ActBlue. The attorney general’s letter does not refer to specific donors or contributions made through ActBlue that he said were problematic.

“The letter released today by the attorney general speaks for itself,” said Ian Lichacz, a spokesman for Miyares. “Our office has reviewed allegations regarding numerous individuals’ donor information. No single donor or allegation prompted this action.”

The announcement follows chatter on conservative social media about an unusually high number of political donations from someone who apparently lives in suburban Richmond.

Miyares amplified social media posts pointing to this particular donor, but federal campaign finance records show that most of the donor’s contributions went to Republicans, not Democrats.

Although a few donations appear to have been made through ActBlue, a much larger number were made through WinRed.

Miyares reposted a social media post by Charlie Kirk, a far-right figure and founder of the conservative group Talking Points USA, who implicitly incorrect Thousands of small donations from the Richmond-area contributor were directed to Democrats through ActBlue.

“My office is aware of these allegations and please be assured that we are looking into the matter,” Miyares said, reposting Kirk’s misleading claim days before announcing he had sent the letter to ActBlue.

Former President Donald Trump also reposted Kirk’s message on social media, with a comment added by another user suggesting that Miyares would suffer politically if he did not pursue “money laundering” involving ActBlue. The donor whose high frequency of contributions inspired Kirk’s message has donated extensively to Trump, according to campaign financial records.

The Mercury is not naming the donor identified on social media because there is no indication yet that the person was the victim of identity theft or did not intend to make the donations that Kirk and others deemed suspicious.

The attorney general’s office did not explain why the investigation focused only on ActBlue and not WinRed.