Exclusive: Data shows that half of 2019 donations to ActBlue came from Untraceable 'unemployed' donors
A Take Back Action Fund analysis of $400M in donations to liberal causes raises red flags of possible Foreign Involvement
EXCLUSIVE: Less than two months ahead of the
presidential election – with concerns of foreign interference again at the forefront – a conservative political group is raising "serious concerns" about millions of donations reported by a major Democratic fundraising platform.
A preliminary computer analysis by the Take Back Action Fund, obtained exclusively by Fox News, has found that nearly half of all 2019 donations to ActBlue were made by people claiming to be unemployed.
Action Fund President John Pudner questioned the veracity of those donations and called it a loophole that must be closed for the sake of election integrity.
"After downloading hundreds of millions of [dollars in] donations to the Take Back Action Fund servers, we were shocked to see that almost half of the donations to ActBlue in 2019 claimed to be unemployed individuals," he said. "The name of employers must be disclosed when making
political donations, but more than 4.7 million donations came from people who claimed they did not have an employer. Those 4.7 million donations totaled $346 million ActBlue raised and sent to liberal causes."
The trend is continuing this year: An Action Fund examination of 2020 data from January through August showed an uptick in "unemployed" donations through ActBlue, to 50.1% this year.
"It is hard to believe that at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate was less than 4 percent, that unemployed people had $346 million dollars to send to ActBlue for liberal causes," Pudner said, adding that "4.7 million donations from people without a job ... raised serious concerns."
But critics, including the Action Fund, contend that the website allows credit card donations that are not verified, so anyone from any country in the world can donate without a paper trail.
"ActBlue's insistence on refusing to allow banks to verify their donations is an invitation to foreign programmers or others to send money through them using fake American names, and we encourage them to start letting banks verify the identity of donors to stop the potential for millions of dollars to influence our election," Pudner said.
Exclusive: Data shows that half of 2019 donations to ActBlue came from untraceable 'unemployed' donors
