In a groundbreaking executive order, President Trump has sent the Department of Justice after one of the Democratic Party’s top fundraising platforms, eliciting significant backlash from Democrats after directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead an investigation into suspicious donations raised by the platform.
For context, President Trump’s executive order, signed on April 24, 2025, targets ActBlue, an organization dedicated to raising funds for Democratic candidates. ActBlue has attracted criticism from Republicans due to the questionable nature of donations to the campaigns of leftist politicians like Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who reportedly received over $800,000 from ActBlue.
According to a fact sheet released by the White House, President Trump signed the executive order to “crack down on illegal ‘straw donor’ and foreign contributions in American elections, following reports and congressional investigations regarding potentially unlawful activities through ActBlue and other online fundraising platforms.”
Continuing, the White House confirmed that the executive order also commissions Attorney General Pam Bondi to “investigate and take appropriate action concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to U.S. political candidates and committees, all of which break the law.”
Furthermore, according to the White House, recent evidence has revealed that online platforms like ActBlue are “being used to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees.” The fact sheet also explains that ActBlue has an especially bad reputation for its standards regarding donation fraud, saying, “A recent House of Representatives investigation found that ActBlue detected at least 22 ‘significant fraud campaigns’ in recent years—nearly half of which had a foreign nexus.”
At the conclusion of the White House’s fact sheet, President Trump is quoted as making a commitment to “fix our elections so that our elections are going to be honorable and honest,” continuing, “We will secure our elections, and they will be secure once and for all.”
In response to the executive order, ActBlue condemned President Trump’s actions, reportedly calling the order a “brazen attack,” according to Breitbart News. In addition, ActBlue stated that they believed the order was “blatantly unlawful,” and argued that it was “Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition.”
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In the same statement, ActBlue made it clear that they would take steps to push back against President Trump’s executive order, saying, “ActBlue will continue its mission and work undeterred and uninterrupted, providing a safe, secure fundraising platform for the millions of grassroots donors who rely on us.” Additionally, a joint statement from several key Democrats also condemned the order, reportedly describing President Trump as having a “chaotic agenda” and “driving the economy off a cliff.”
Watch coverage of the new executive order:
Featured image credit: screenshot from the embedded video