Prominent Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders continue funneling campaign donations through ActBlue even as congressional investigators probe the platform's failure to stop potentially illegal foreign contributions, and an 88-year-old Michigan woman disputes $150,000 in donations attributed to her name.
The case of Elizabeth Waffle has become a flashpoint in a years-long congressional investigation into the Democratic fundraising giant. Federal Election Commission records attribute more than 16,000 political contributions totaling nearly $150,000 to Waffle, an 88-year-old resident of Milan, Michigan, over a six-year span from September 2020 through June 2026. Waffle says the numbers are wrong.
Interviewed outside her trailer by a reporter for the Michigan Enjoyer, Waffle did not mince words when confronted with the FEC figures, as Fox News Digital reported:
"One hundred and fifty thousand? H*** no. I don't have that kind of money."
Waffle acknowledged using ActBlue to make political donations. She did not deny all activity on the platform. But she flatly rejected the scale of what FEC records show under her name.
She told the interviewer that the figures looked fabricated. "I don't see $150,000. That's very abnormal and I think it's wrong. I think there's something in there that's off," she said. She also described ActBlue's central role in Democratic fundraising in blunt terms: "Everything goes through ActBlue. ActBlue is like the bank."
Waffle's case is not an isolated data point. It sits inside a broader investigation that House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil launched in 2023, examining whether ActBlue's systems allowed illegal foreign money to flow into American campaigns. The investigation has produced troubling findings, and a pattern of silence from the platform's own leadership.
An April 2025 interim staff report from House committees cited internal ActBlue records showing the platform detected 237 donations from foreign IP addresses using domestic prepaid cards during a single 30-day window in late 2024. Congressional investigators described that pattern as a leading indicator of fraud.
ActBlue's own data flagged the problem. The question is what the company did about it, and on that point, lawmakers have gotten almost nothing.
At a June 10, 2026 hearing titled "Preventing Fraudulent Donations: Transparency, Verification, and Accountability," ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones declined to answer lawmakers' questions about the platform's fraud-prevention practices and its handling of potentially fraudulent donations. She invoked the Fifth Amendment. Across multiple congressional interviews, current and former ActBlue employees invoked the Fifth Amendment a total of 146 times, Steil stated at the hearing.
Wallace-Jones has not been charged with or accused of any crime, and invoking the Fifth Amendment is not evidence of wrongdoing. But the sheer volume of refusals, 146 across multiple employees, has fueled Republican demands for deeper scrutiny of a platform that has processed more than $19 billion in donations since its founding in 2004.
Steil put it plainly in a statement to Fox News Digital:
"ActBlue employees have repeatedly refused to answer questions under oath about fraud and illegal foreign donations on their platform. Our investigation will continue and I will continue to demand answers for the American people."
None of this has slowed the progressive politicians who depend on ActBlue's infrastructure. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed all continue raising campaign cash through the platform. On July 18, 2026, the three appeared together at a campaign rally in Detroit. Sanders' campaign website directs supporters to ActBlue to donate to El-Sayed's campaign.
El-Sayed has built his candidacy around reducing the influence of money in politics and has pledged to reject corporate PAC money. His campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment about his continued reliance on a platform under active congressional investigation for potential fraud.
FEC records tie Waffle's name directly to El-Sayed's fundraising operation. Fox News Digital's review found 47 ActBlue contributions totaling about $518 attributed to Elizabeth Waffle of Milan, Michigan, for El-Sayed's campaign between October 2025 and July 2026. Waffle was not asked about those specific contributions during her interview.
El-Sayed is not the only progressive figure pressing ahead. Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared at an August 2, 2026 campaign rally for Wisconsin state Rep. Francesca Hong, who is running for governor and fundraising through ActBlue. Former Rep. Cori Bush, who is running to return to Congress, also continues using the platform. ActBlue's own "Trending Campaigns" page highlights Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, and former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.
ActBlue has denied all wrongdoing. In a statement to Fox News Digital, the platform said it has "zero tolerance for fraud or other illegal activity" and that its fraud-prevention measures meet or exceed legal requirements. The company framed the entire investigation as partisan overreach.
"For three years, ActBlue has been targeted by MAGA Republicans because of who we are and what we stand for, not because of any unlawful conduct."
ActBlue brands itself as a grassroots fundraising platform and a "counterweight to the dark money special interests that dominate our politics." That self-description sits uneasily next to 237 flagged foreign-IP donations in a single month, an 88-year-old woman who says she never gave $150,000, and a CEO who would not answer Congress's questions.
The Republican National Committee pushed back hard. RNC election integrity communications director Ally Triolo told Fox News Digital:
"Democrats claim to oppose special interests with one exception: their own. They defend fraud and schemes like ActBlue because they know cheating the system is the only way for their corrupt campaigns to raise money."
A spokesman for Steil confirmed the House Administration Committee is examining Waffle's case as part of its broader ActBlue investigation. The probe remains ongoing. ActBlue has not been found to have violated campaign finance laws and has not been prohibited from processing donations.
The gap between what FEC records show and what Elizabeth Waffle says she did remains unexplained. More than 16,000 contributions over six years is roughly seven donations per day, every day, for the entire period. Waffle lives in a trailer in Milan, Michigan. She told the interviewer her home burned down two years before the interview. She said her phone could not get internet service as she tried to demonstrate how she used ActBlue.
Waffle acknowledged donating through the platform. She did not deny all involvement. But the volume and dollar amount attributed to her name strain any ordinary explanation, and ActBlue has offered no public accounting of how one elderly woman's identity became attached to that scale of activity.
Several key questions remain unanswered. Has Waffle filed a formal complaint with the FEC or law enforcement? How many individual employees invoked the Fifth Amendment across those 146 total refusals? And what specific safeguards does ActBlue employ beyond the company's general claim that its measures "meet or exceed legal requirements"?
When a platform processes $19 billion in political money, refuses to answer Congress under oath, and cannot explain how an 88-year-old woman's name ended up on 16,000 donations she says she never made, the people who keep using that platform own the questions they refuse to ask.
