My Dumb State: South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson Investigates ActBlue (Democrat Party) for ‘Smurfing’, But Not WinRed (Trump Party)

May 1, 2025 03:36 PM EDT, Thu

‘Smurfing’ is the action of bundling large sums of money into smaller transactions to avoid regulatory laws reporting large transactions.

ICYMI: AG Alan Wilson requests SLED investigation into online political fundraising platforms like ActBlue - South Carolina Attorney General

APR 28, 2025

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has requested that the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) open a preliminary inquiry into online political fundraising platforms, including ActBlue.

In a letter to SLED Chief Mark Keel, Wilson asked that agents be assigned to investigate allegations involving suspicious activity on platforms such as ActBlue. Agents will work in coordination with Wilson’s office and Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Creighton Waters.

“Nonprofit and political entities must be fully transparent to reassure the public about the integrity of our electoral process,” Wilson said.

This action follows a previous letter Attorney General Wilson sent on August 22, 2024, raising serious concerns about potentially fraudulent activity involving ActBlue, ActBlue Civics, and ActBlue Charities. Wilson’s office was alerted to allegations of possible “smurfing,” a money laundering tactic where large donations are disguised as multiple smaller ones, and other questionable donation practices.

Wilson pointed to alarming reports of individuals listed as “unemployed” or with modest occupations making implausibly large and frequent contributions through ActBlue platforms. If true, these practices could violate South Carolina’s charitable, regulatory, criminal, and campaign finance laws, and potentially federal law as well.

Attorney General Wilson emphasized that South Carolinians deserve full transparency to protect the integrity of elections and demanded ActBlue provide a detailed explanation of its donor verification procedures.

You can read the letter here.

Attorney General Alan Wilson sends letter to ActBlue demanding answers on allegations of fraudulent political fundraising - South Carolina Attorney General

AUG 26, 2024

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has sent a letter to the CEO of ActBlue over allegations that the political fundraising group may have engaged in potentially fraudulent, deceptive, or otherwise illegal activities.

ActBlue is a political action committee and fundraising platform to serve left-leaning and Democratic nonprofits and politicians.

“It has come to my attention that these alleged activities may include ‘smurfing,’ a money laundering technique where large sums of money are ‘donated’ to a political candidate (or committee), and are broken down through smaller, less conspicuous amounts. Based on publicly accessible information, some individual donors in South Carolina have purportedly donated funds through ActBlue in prolific volumes that appear implausible and highly suspicious,” Attorney General Wilson writes in the letter.

He says this raises the question of whether contributions by ActBlue are really from straw-donors or fictitious accounts, which could indicate fraud. It also raises the question of whether contributions were made in the donors’ names without their knowledge or consent.

If the allegations are true, they could violate South Carolinians laws as well as the Federal Election Campaign Act.

“South Carolinians are entitled to transparency and the assurance that nonprofit and political entities are financed legally. Any deviation from this transparency undermines the integrity of our elections and political processes. And as the chief legal officer in South Carolinians, it is my duty to ensure unequivocal compliance with the law,” he writes to Regina Wallace Jones, CEO of ActBlue.

He’s requesting the group provide a detailed description of ActBlue’s processes for verifying the legitimacy of donor information, as well as the information reported to South Carolinians’s regulatory bodies, by Friday, September 6th.

You can read the letter here.

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