OPINION:
In April, The New York Times ran a story about a key Democrat fundraising platform with this headline: “ActBlue May Have Misled Congress on Vetting Foreign Donations, Its Lawyers Warned.” So Congress launched hearings because foreign donations to U.S. politicians, particularly campaigning politicians, is a big no-no.
But when asked this week to clarify and explain and correct the record, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones said: crickets. And not just once. Again and again and again.
“ActBlueCEO repeatedly invokes Fifth Amendment in House hearing as donor fraud probe intensifies,” ABC News wrote in one headline.
’The CEO of the largest Democratic fundraising platform, ActBlue, pleaded the Fifth nearly two dozen times,” ABC News reported.
Instead, and in preview of her House Administration Committee hearing, as a means of getting ahead of the controversy of her planned vow of silence, Wallace-Jones wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post explaining a pleading of the Fifth was in no way an admission of guilt; in no way was it “a retreat,” but rather “a reasonable response to a proceeding that from the beginning has been about harassing a political opponent’s fundraising platform, not genuine oversight.”
Hmm.
Except that it was The New York Times that reported on the matter that drove further investigation. The New York Times. Hardly a harasser of Democrat causes.
Here’s another way to look at it: Whenever a liberal-leaning news organization reports something akin to negative news about a Democrat or a Democrat organization, then chances are pretty high that not only is the report true, but it’s a watered-down version of the truth. It’s like the newspaper powers decided, in quiet closed-door editorial meetings, that the story was too hot to ignore, so in order to appear as if their journalists are not carrying water for the Democrats, they have to report it. Regarding this ActBlue matter, they probably debated how best to angle the report so as to inflict the least possible amount of damage on their Democrat friends. But they reported it, nonetheless. And here’s another thought: Whenever a liberal-leaning news organization reports something akin to negative about their Democrat friends, or Democrat organizations, smart money’s on the side of suspecting that the report is just a drop in the bucket of the larger scandal.
Again, specific to the ActBlue matter —so when The New York Times wrote that the law firm, Covington & Burling, expressed legal concerns of “substantial risk” about the Democrat fundraiser’s assertions of vetting, those “legal concerns” of ”substantial risk” are probably just taps at the glaring gongs that are being banged among the legal community.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wanted to get Americans those answers, but unfortunately, a judge in Massachusetts just told him he can’t.
“U.S. judge blocks Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue,” The Detroit News reported.
“Federal Judge Blocks Paxton’s ActBlue Lawsuit, Citing First Amendment Retaliation,” Law Commentary wrote.
It’s always a happy circumstance for Democrats when they can get a Massachusetts judge to tell a MAGA Texan to stop. Not curious at all. Probably nothing biased about that.
In April, three House committees — Administration, Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform — released an interim staff report called, “Fraud on ActBlue, Part II: Illicit Foreign Donations and a Cover-up Spur Mass Resignations and Firings on ActBlue’s Legal and Compliance Team,” a 120-page document that detailed, well, what its title suggested.
This week, House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil, Republican from Wisconsin, said: “There’s a significant concern that ActBlue may have allowed foreign donations on their platform, lied to Congress and withheld responsive documents from a congressional subpoena.”
And in defense, ActBlue’s Wallace-Jones said: [insert smirk here].
“She refus[ed] to answer even a question about her name from Rep. Barry Loudermilk,” The Hill wrote.
Yep. She figures she only has to hold out until November.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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