President Trump is at it again, accusing his political opponents of fraud and corruption. This time, he is targeting ActBlue, a major fundraising platform for Democratic candidates at the local, state and national levels.
Since 2004, when it was established, ActBlue has collected almost $17 billion for Democrats and affiliated causes. In the 2024 election alone, it raised more than $1 billion — far outstripping the $600 million raised by the Republican-affiliated WinRed.
Like any other organization of such scope and magnitude, ActBlue is far from perfect. Among other things, it has recently been plagued by sudden staff turnover. But given its success and importance to Democrats, it is not surprising that the president and his supporters in Congress would try to cripple it. That’s what 21st-century authoritarians do: They retain the forms of democracy but do everything they can to tip the scales in their favor.
In this case, Trump is drawing from a familiar playbook, clothing his latest act of election interference with the pretext that he is protecting election integrity.
As the White House put it in a “fact sheet” accompanying the announcement of a Justice Department investigation of ActBlue, “Voters deserve elections they can trust, and that confidence is being restored thanks to President Trump,” who supposedly “is following through on his promise to secure our elections.”
Trump directed his attorney general “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.” He alleges “significant fraud schemes using ActBlue” and claims ActBlue “has become notorious for its lax standards that enable unverified and fraudulent donations.”
This pretext should not take us in.
As the New York Times put it, “The move steps up Republicans’ efforts to cripple their opponents’ political infrastructure” and “is likely to create vulnerabilities for the entire Democratic fund-raising apparatus.”
Republicans, who have long argued that political contributions are a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment — a view embraced by the Supreme Court in a series of key decisions — are now seeking to take down a mechanism through which millions of Americans have made their voices heard.
The first of those Supreme Court decisions, Buckley v. Valeo, held that “a contribution serves as a general expression of support for the candidate and his views … and the limitation on total campaign expenditures did violate the First Amendment.” In its infamous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, a 5-4 majority on the court reaffirmed that view.
In 1963, the Supreme Court held that Virginia’s prosecution of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for “improper solicitation” was unconstitutional. The move was a pretext for punishing the NAACP for mounting a successful litigation effort to secure the desegregation of schools in that state.
The Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP has “urged the institution of suits to challenge racial discrimination; offered the services of attorneys selected and paid by it and its affiliates; and, with its affiliates, controlled the conduct of such litigation.” The court recognized those activities as “modes of expression and association.”
In words pertinent to what Trump is doing to ActBlue, the court took Virginia to task for what it saw as a transparent effort to intimidate an opposition group and chill activities of which it disapproved. As Justice William Brennan explained, “Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. … Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations. Any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents. “
ActBlue is just such an association, and the Trump administration’s attack on it threatens the values to which Brennan so eloquently gave voice.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.