Democratic committee leaders are asking a government agency to hand over documents related to the Republican fundraising platform WinRed, according to a new letter exclusively shared with NOTUS.
The Federal Trade Commission received more than 800 complaints against WinRed between January 2022 and June 2024, seven times as many as the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, according to a CNN investigation into the “deceptive” fundraising tactics misleading elderly Americans into donating millions to political candidates and causes.
Ranking members of the House Administration, Judiciary and Oversight committees cited the CNN report in their letter to the FTC’s chair, Andrew Ferguson.
“Congress seeks to determine whether legislation is necessary to prevent violations of federal campaign finance and consumer protection laws in connection with fundraising by political candidates and to guard against deceptive and predatory campaign fundraising practices, illicit foreign influence over federal officials, and other financial misconduct connected to prospective or current federal officials,” Reps. Joseph Morelle, Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia wrote.
The oversight powers of the minority party are limited. Members can’t initiate hearings or investigations or issue subpoenas as their majority counterparts can, but they can send letters.
Morelle, Raskin and the late Rep. Gerry Connolly also asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last month to turn over “suspicious activity reports” related to several Republican and Trump-aligned groups including WinRed and Elon Musk’s America PAC. Garcia this week won the race for Connolly’s seat after he died last month.
WinRed has come under fire for lack of transparency into administrative and operating costs — it discloses far less than Democrats’ counterpart, ActBlue, prompting a complaint from a campaign finance watchdog. The CNN investigation raises additional questions about the “episodes of fraud, financial exploitation, or other illegality or abuse of American consumers,” Morelle, Raskin and Garcia wrote.
“[It is imperative that the [FTC] ensure that businesses engaged in fundraising for political committees or other advocacy organizations — pivotal actors in our democratic system —are not exploiting or misleading American voters for financial gain,” the Democrats wrote. “If the American people cannot trust their political system, it is failing them.”
Congressional Republicans have launched their own probe into ActBlue, alleging the platform is a vehicle for “straw donors” and foreign contributions, which are illegal. President Donald Trump in April issued an executive order calling for an investigation into the platform.
ActBlue has been fighting back. In a letter to Reps. Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil — who lead the committees investigating the platform — obtained by Politico earlier this month, ActBlue’s counsel characterized the investigation as “a partisan effort to exploit legislative processes to gather information in service of a White House-directed Justice Department investigation.”
Both WinRed and ActBlue are massive small-dollar fundraising vehicles for their respective parties. WinRed raked in nearly $1.7 billion for GOP candidates during the 2024 election cycle, according to the nonpartisan political money trackers at OpenSecrets, while ActBlue brought in more than $3.8 billion in 2024.
Neither the FTC nor WinRed immediately responded to requests for comment.
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Taylor Giorno is a reporter at NOTUS.