Texas AG Reports ‘Sophisticated Actors’ Stealing Identities Of Others To Circumvent Campaign Finance Laws

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the findings Monday of an investigation into Democrat mega funder ActBlue following reports alleging that donors to the site were using other people’s identities.

Paxton enumerated his findings in the ongoing case in a press release. He said through a letter to the Federal Election Commission that potential donors can exploit existing election law loopholes to funnel millions of dollars worth of donations under other people’s names. 

Paxton exhorted the FEC to close the existing loopholes to prevent any fraud.

“Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations,” Paxton said. “It is imperative that the FEC close off the avenues we have identified by which foreign contributions or contributions in excess of legal limits could be unlawfully funneled to political campaigns, bypassing campaign finance regulations and compromising our electoral system. I am calling on the FEC to immediately begin rulemaking to secure our elections from any criminal actors exploiting these vulnerabilities.”

BREAKING: Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations.

It is imperative that the FEC close off the avenues we have identified by which foreign contributions or… pic.twitter.com/8E5vfaYxDL

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 21, 2024

Paxton alleged that his investigation corroborated reports that illegal donors were stealing people’s identities to make payments of up to thousands of dollars. The donors would often give multiple times a day, he said.

The investigation also found that the actors involved in this alleged criminal scheme were highly sophisticated, to a degree that even Paxton’s civil investigators had a hard time tracing the transactions. 

“The Attorney General’s civil investigators do not commonly see this kind of criminal-style evasiveness, and do not have the technical expertise to comprehensively review the tremendous scope of transactions at issue,” Paxton noted in the FEC letter. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ActBlue’s New Security Measures Don’t Address Fundraising Loophole Flagged By GOP Lawmakers)

Election Watch is an organization dedicated to monitoring FEC data for so-called smurf accounts. A smurf is a donor account whose identity may have been stolen from an unwitting individual. According to Election Watch data, smurf accounts made over $2 billion in political donations using Texas residents’ identities from 2017 to April 2023. There were over 14 million transactions tracked from those accounts during that time, the data shows

Paxton recommended that the FEC mandate a cross check of all political donations using credit, debit, gift cards and prepaid cards to ensure that the donor identity matches the identity listed on the card. His letter also recommended that prepaid cards and gift cards should only be accepted if this cross check can be done with the entity that issued the card in question.

The ActBlue controversy has extended beyond the state of Texas and has garnered national attention in recent months. Republican Wisconsin Representative Bryan Steil sent a letter Sept. 18 directing five state attorneys general, including Paxton, to investigate ActBlue and its facilitating smurf donations.

The Daily Caller has reached out to Paxton and is waiting for comment.