'Something stinks': Elon Musk, congressional Republicans target Democrats' main fundraising machine [View all]

Source: CNN Politics

Published 6:00 AM EDT, Thu March 27, 2025


CNN — ActBlue, a fundraising juggernaut for liberal candidates and causes, is facing stepped-up scrutiny and criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill and allies of President Donald Trump – as the GOP flexes its new power in Washington and targets one of the key pillars of the Democratic Party’s financial infrastructure.

Three Republicans in Congress – including the chairmen of the House Oversight and Administration panels – are urging Trump’s Treasury Department to share with lawmakers reports of suspicious financial transactions related to ActBlue. Other GOP lawmakers are demanding probes by Treasury and the FBI into whether the fundraising platform has helped organizations engaged in terrorism or violated federal campaign finance laws.

And billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk – who is overseeing the administration’s controversial effort to rapidly shrink the federal government – has criticized ActBlue, seeking to tie it to protests and acts of vandalism against his electric-vehicle company Tesla. He has argued, without evidence to substantiate his claims, that some prominent Democrats – including one who died in 2019 – were funding ActBlue and the protests. “Something stinks about ActBlue,” Musk posted earlier this month on his social media platform, X.

Officials with ActBlue deny any wrongdoing. “ActBlue has always dealt with attacks and baseless claims from the Right that are designed to undermine the power of the small-dollar donors who rely on our platform,” spokesperson Megan Hughes said in a statement in CNN. “This new, coordinated attack is different only in scale, and our team remains steadfast in defending against these bad-faith attacks.”

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/politics/elon-musk-republicans-target-actblue/index.html