A board member of ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform that has moved roughly $20 billion into Democratic campaigns and causes, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while testifying before a House investigation into alleged foreign donations, according to sources familiar with the testimony.
Kimberly Peeler-Allen’s refusal to answer questions came as part of a joint probe by the House Administration, Judiciary and Oversight Committees examining whether ActBlue accepted illicit foreign money and failed to stop fraud.
She is not the first ActBlue figure to take the Fifth. ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergalis did the same during a closed-door deposition before the same three committees on Aug. 20. ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones also pleaded the Fifth in her own deposition to the House Administration Committee in June.
The Committee on House Administration opened its investigation into ActBlue in 2023. Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., has said the group may be accepting foreign or fraudulent donations because it does not require donors to enter a credit card CVV number.
Steil told Fox News’ Mark Meredith he is frustrated that people connected to ActBlue have repeatedly declined to answer questions on the record.
“I’ve been frustrated, that individuals [in] ActBlue haven’t answered our questions on the record,” Steil said. “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 preventions. We want to make sure that they have the fraud prevention protocols in place to make sure that foreign funds are not coming into U.S. elections.”
Steil rejected the idea that the investigation is a partisan exercise, saying it grew out of a broader review of online fundraising platforms and whether they have adequate fraud prevention in place to keep foreign money out of U.S. elections.
“This investigation began is a review of online fundraising platforms and a determination whether or not 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 that exactly what has been taking place inside Act Blue, per the public reporting,” Steil said.
That reporting, an April investigation by The New York Times, found that ActBlue’s own legal counsel had warned the organization that a letter CEO Regina Wallace-Jones sent to House Republicans may have misled lawmakers. Wallace-Jones described ActBlue’s screening process for weeding out foreign donations as “multilayered.” But the Times reported that ActBlue’s counsel told the organization it did not always follow the steps Wallace-Jones outlined, warning that her response posed “a substantial risk for ActBlue.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has separately sued ActBlue, alleging fraudulent and foreign donations flowed through the platform.
Fox News Digital contacted ActBlue for comment.
