Kamala Harris’ record-breaking haul of more than $81million in donations in the 24-hour period following Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential race,  has some people wondering whether the contributions are on the up and up.

Harris failed to secure a single Democrat National Convention delegate during her ill-fated 2020 presidential run, and has been a historically unpopular vice president, with approval numbers generally falling below even Biden’s abysmal approval numbers.

After Joe Biden received tens of millions of votes in the Democrat primaries, the party’s powerbrokers pressured him to bow out because they deemed him to be unelectable. Biden’s cognitive decline had been obvious for years to those watching closely, but his mental struggles during the widely viewed presidential debate on June 27 made it impossible for Democrats and their allies in the media to continue covering it up.

Once the unpopular Harris emerged as the party’s favorite to replace Biden, a Democrat-media campaign immediately ensued to help drum up enthusiasm for her candidacy. Part of that effort has been to trumpet her “historic,” record-breaking” fundraising haul.

According to the Democrat donation platform ActBlue, more than 888,000 people donated sums of up to $200 each within the first 24 hours of Biden’s announcement. She reportedly reached $100 million in donations after only 36 hours.

“Grassroots supporters are energized and excited to support (Harris) as the Democratic nominee,” ActBlue wrote on X.

But are they?

An MSNBC focus group of liberal Democrats recently expressed resentment that they were left out of the nomination process after voting for Biden in the primary.

“Would have been nice if he made this decision a year ago so we could have had a primary and maybe decided who we wanted to replace him rather than just all flocking to Kamala Harris,” one Democrat voter said.

Some are wondering who these small, grassroots donors are who contributed to Harris’ campaign so quickly. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has not yet published ActBlue’s itemized receipts for July, 2024.

But multiple investigative reporters uncovered evidence last year that ActBlue may be laundering millions of dollars of campaign donations through small donors in an attempt to cover up illegal foreign contributions.

ActBlue does not require a card verification value (CVV) number for online donations, a standard practice designed to reduce fraud and prevent unlawful foreign transactions.

Using FEC records, the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), Election Watch, and other independent journalists tracked down dozens of donors who had made suspiciously frequent donations to Joe Biden and other Democrats.

In April of 2023, James O’Keefe knocked on doors in Maryland and talked to several of these elderly Democrat donors.

“FEC data shows that some senior citizens across the U.S. have been donating thousands of times per year,” O’Keefe explained. “Some of these individuals’ names and addresses are attached to over $200,000 in contributions.” O’Keefe dubbed the unwitting victims in the alleged multi-state money-laundering scheme as “Smurfs.”

According to O’Keefe, the records show that one Annapolis Smurf donated $217,000 to ActBlue in 12,000 separate contributions over a three year period, indicting he made multiple donations per day during that time period.

“We’re wondering if these donors are victims of what appears to be a money-laundering scheme, or these residents actually participated in the scheme,” O’Keefe said.

One donor told him he wasn’t aware that he had made 3,000 contributions totaling $32,000, but seemed to blame former President Donald Trump for the mix-up. “Hit him with a bat,” the man said. “Right over the head.”

O’Keefe also confronted a woman who had allegedly donated $18,850 through a total of 1,000 donations.

“Once in a while I donate $5.00 or so dollars or something like that,” the woman told O’Keefe.

“What about $18,850?” O’Keefe asked.

“I doubt that,” the woman replied.

“Not that many donations?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” she responded. “I wish I could have donated $18,000 to Biden’s presidency.”

A man that reportedly donated $230,155 said “no way” when asked about this amount.

O’Keefe spoke with several other purportedly large donors in the area and every one of them denied making anything but small donations.

Brightline Investigations, which was hired by Election Watch, spoke with a Wisconsin man about allegedly donating 8,000 times. He said, “That seems a little odd; that seems too high. Maybe $800.” He insisted he only donates about once a month prior to an election.

Brightline investigator Kyle Corrigan asked another Wisconsin resident about the 11,000 donations he allegedly made over seven years, which amounts to about four times a day. Another Wisconsin resident, Cindy Grossberg,  said it didn’t sound right that she had made 4,000 donations and noted she does not have contributions debited monthly from her account.

American Spectator reporter Scott McKay investigated potential ActBlue money-laundering in Louisiana.

“It took us no time at all to find a New Orleans resident named Cornelius Maneaux who’s listed as ‘not employed’ but nevertheless donated to ActBlue some 847 times between January 4, 2021 and December 31, 2022 in amounts ranging from $1 to $100 for a total of $18,276.54,” McKay reported.

The reporter posted a picture of Maneaux’s home to demonstrate the unlikelihood that the unemployed Maneaux had the funds to make 847 campaign donations in a two year period to ActBlue totaling nearly $20,000.

North Carolina investigative journalist Stephen Horn found and verified two residents in Raleigh whose names and addresses were fraudulently placed on FEC contributions records.

Both were reported to have contributed substantial amounts of money, but both individuals emphatically denied having made the donations.

“There was absolutely no way I could afford to make those types of contributions,” one of the Raleigh residents told Horn.

Citizen journalists from Southern California also conducted their own investigation using the publicly available FEC data, and quickly found many residents who denied making the excessive political donations attributed to them.

In Austin, TX, a citizen journalist found a resident who, according to FEC data, made 10,000+ different small donations to ActBlue from 2020-2022 worth over $106,304, although the individual denied having donated to ActBlue.

‌Election Watch said it would file a complaint with the FEC over the apparent fraud, and also file a lawsuit in the northern district of Virginia. American Greatness reached out to the organization for an update on the status of the filings, but did not immediately hear back.

On April 11, 2023,  a day after OMG’s report came out, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to the FEC demanding to know what rules were in place for the online donations received by political committees and campaigns. He also urged the agency to “investigate alarming reports of widespread fraudulent donations by ActBlue.”

In response to Rubio, the FEC acknowledged it does not impose any specific security measures on political groups that solicit money online because nothing in federal law requires those measures.

“The Federal Election Commission Act] does not impose requirements for specific safety or security guardrails that political committees must use to accept online donations,” the FEC said in a response to Rubio’s letter.

The FEC however agreed that CVV numbers should be required to verify political donations.

“The Commission approved a requester’s proposed use of credit card security codes to verify the contributor’s physical possession of the credit card as part of its alternative verification process to meet the requirements for matchable contributions under the Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account Act,” the FEC said.

Following the FEC’s response, Rubio reiterated his calls for Congress to pass the Codification of Verified Values (CVV) Act (S. 491), which would require donors to political organizations who use credit cards “to disclose the credit verification value of such credit card at the time a contribution is made.”

“We’ve seen alarming reports of fraudulent donations being reported to the FEC by ActBlue,” said Rubio, who introduced the CVV Act in February of 2023. “Cracking down on credit card fraud and foreign political donations used to be a bipartisan idea. This is a common-sense reform that should pass by unanimous consent. If not, those in opposition should be forced to explain why they support allowing foreign money into U.S. elections.”

The legislation was referred to the Senate’s Finance Committee where it has stalled.

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