The Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced on Friday it will conduct a probe on potential "fraud and illicit financial activity linked" to Democratic Political Action Committee (PAC).
The organization in question is ActBlue. The committee said in a statement that recent reports about the organization "raise concerns about the threat of fraud and evasion of campaign finance law by individuals exploiting online contribution platforms."
"ActBlue had not implemented standard procedures to guard against identity theft and fraud such as requiring a Card Verification Value (CVV) to process online transactions until it received criticism for not doing so," the body added in a publication on X where it justifies the probe.
As a result, the body led by Rep. James Comer gave Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen a hard deadline to provide information that could shed light on the matter. Concretely, the requested any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) "filed or relating to transactions occurring on or after January 1, 2023, to the present, containing the term 'ActBlue,' which relate to money laundering, counterfeit credit/debit card, credit card or debit card fraud, false statements, wire transfer fraud or identity theft." The deadline to do so is October 4.
In another passage of the document, the body says that the PAC is being investigated in several states in relation to "contributions allegedly made via the platform fraudulently without the reported contributor's awareness." "In Virginia, reports of contribution activity facilitated through the ActBlue platform included 'some cases in which single donors made tens of thousands of separate donations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,'" the letter adds.
The letter comes just a day after a high profile event in which the PAC was involved and featured a conversation between former talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Vice President Kamala Harris. The PAC's last publication on X calls users to join the event, saying that it was "excited to help power" it. It did not publicly react to the investigation at the moment of writing this article.
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