Matt DeBergalis, co-founder of the Democratic Party’s massive online fundraising platform ActBlue, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a closed-door deposition before three House committees this week, becoming the latest and perhaps most significant figure connected to ActBlue to refuse to answer questions from congressional investigators.
DeBergalis appeared Thursday morning before a joint panel comprised of the Committee on House Administration, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee. According to sources familiar with the matter, his appearance was remarkably brief, lasting less than half an hour. Reporters observed DeBergalis entering and exiting the committee room in roughly 25 minutes, a strikingly short window for someone whose organization has processed billions of dollars in political donations and now sits at the center of a widening federal investigation.
The joint investigation is examining whether ActBlue’s fraud prevention standards were so lax that they allowed foreign or fraudulent donations to flow into American political campaigns undetected. This is not a fringe conspiracy theory pushed by internet commentators. It is a formal, bipartisan congressional inquiry backed by subpoena power and, as it turns out, direct testimony from ActBlue’s own leadership refusing to answer basic questions about the platform’s practices.
DeBergalis is not the first senior ActBlue official to take the Fifth. In June, ActBlue’s current chief executive, Regina Wallace-Jones, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights multiple times during a public hearing before the House Administration Committee. During that hearing, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan pressed her directly on a striking figure attributed to ActBlue’s own board chairman, who reportedly acknowledged the platform accepted as much as $38 million in 2024 contributions bearing signs of foreign origin. Wallace-Jones declined to answer even that pointed question, invoking the Fifth more than 20 times over the course of the hearing according to multiple reports.
The pattern extends well beyond ActBlue’s top two executives. According to a committee report, five current or former ActBlue employees collectively invoked the Fifth Amendment 146 times during a House Judiciary deposition held earlier this year in April, refusing to answer nearly every substantive question put to them. By the time DeBergalis sat down for his own deposition this week, he became the sixth ActBlue-affiliated figure to take this approach, a pattern that critics say speaks volumes even if pleading the Fifth is not, on its own, evidence of guilt.
To be fair and accurate, invoking the Fifth Amendment is a constitutional right afforded to every American, and it does not by itself establish that any laws were broken. ActBlue has repeatedly and forcefully denied violating campaign finance law, and the organization has pushed back on the notion that it knowingly allowed illegal foreign contributions onto its platform. Wallace-Jones herself has maintained publicly that invoking the Fifth did not mean she had anything to hide.
Still, the sheer consistency of this pattern is difficult to dismiss. When an organization’s chief executive, its co-founder, and five rank-and-file employees have all independently chosen to invoke the same constitutional protection rather than answer questions about the same set of practices, reasonable people are entitled to ask what, exactly, they are protecting themselves from.
The roots of this investigation stretch back further than most casual observers realize. The Committee on House Administration, which holds jurisdiction over federal election law, first opened its probe into ActBlue back in 2023. Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, raised early concerns that the platform was not requiring donors to provide a CVV security code, the three or four digit number printed on the back of credit cards that is typically used to verify legitimate cardholder transactions. Without that basic safeguard, investigators worried, the platform could be vulnerable to fraudulent or even foreign donations slipping through undetected. ActBlue has since updated its systems to require CVV verification, though critics argue that change came only after years of pressure and long after the alleged damage from lax standards had already been done.
A report released by the investigating committees in April 2025 delivered a damning conclusion, stating plainly that ActBlue executives and staff were aware that both foreign and domestic fraudulent actors were exploiting the platform, yet failed to treat the threat with appropriate seriousness. That is not a fringe allegation. It is a formal finding from a congressional investigation, based on evidence gathered through subpoenas and depositions.
ActBlue is not some minor player in American politics. The platform has processed an estimated $20 billion in donations for Democratic candidates and left-leaning causes since its founding, and it remains the financial backbone of the party’s small-dollar fundraising apparatus. High-profile users of the platform include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, among countless others. Even during the second quarter of 2026, ActBlue reportedly processed $586 million for Democratic candidates, causes, and organizations, underscoring just how central the platform remains to the party’s political machinery even as this scandal continues to unfold.
Given the platform’s outsized role in bankrolling the Democratic Party, the stakes of this investigation extend far beyond ActBlue itself. If the allegations prove accurate, and there is a mounting body of evidence and testimony suggesting they might, the implications for the integrity of American campaign finance would be significant. Foreign money flowing into domestic political campaigns, even in modest amounts, represents exactly the kind of threat to election integrity that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle claim to take seriously.
Chairman Steil has voiced growing frustration with the wall of silence his committee has encountered. He has posed a simple, direct question that ActBlue’s leadership has repeatedly declined to answer: whether the platform has actually made the changes necessary to root out foreign funds from American elections. Steil has also criticized what he described as a troubling pattern of ActBlue executives refusing to answer congressional questions altogether, even as the organization continues to insist publicly that it takes fraud prevention seriously.
It is worth noting the broader political context surrounding these depositions. This same week, separate reporting emerged concerning a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci pleading guilty to conspiracy charges related to the handling of COVID-19 pandemic research funding, another case where a prominent figure tied to a controversial institution ultimately faced legal consequences after years of evasive answers. The parallel has not been lost on commentators who see a broader pattern of prominent left-aligned figures and institutions stonewalling congressional oversight until the walls finally close in.
For its part, ActBlue continues to maintain that fewer than one percent of its 2024 election cycle contributions showed any indicators of fraud, a figure offered by the organization’s board chairwoman in comments to the New York Times earlier this year. Whether that figure holds up under further scrutiny remains to be seen, particularly given that the same board chairman has reportedly acknowledged internally that as much as $38 million in donations bore signs of foreign origin in a single election cycle.
The Justice Department is also reportedly examining aspects of ActBlue’s practices alongside the House committees, suggesting this investigation could eventually move beyond congressional hearings and into the realm of potential criminal referrals, though no such action has been announced at this time.
