“The respondents will be notified of this complaint within five business days,” Wanda D. Brown, the FEC assistant general counsel for complaints examination and legal administration, said in the letter.
“You will be notified as soon as the
Federal Election Commission (FEC) takes final action on your client’s complaint. Should you receive any additional information in this matter, please forward it to the Office of the General Counsel.”
Brown wrote the letter to Dan Backer, a Washington lawyer representing the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation.
“The FEC opened an investigation. There is a process, but they are investigating,” Backer
told The Daily Signal.
The complaints reference a specific suspect donor reported to have given 53 separate donations totaling $595 to Crockett’s campaign through the ActBlue portal.
The suspect donor was a 73-year-old Texas resident named Randy Best, according to the FEC complaint.
However, Best’s wife—in a video promoted by one of Crockett’s opponents for 2026, Sholdon Daniels—denied knowing anything about the donations. The complaint contends this possibly means Best—and potentially other donors through ActBlue—did not make the donations listed under their names.
The bigger picture is that Crockett’s campaign received about $870,000 in total donations through ActBlue. The Coolidge-Reagan Foundation’s FEC complaint says. That includes the $595 recorded from Best, who lives in Plano, Texas.
“Rep. Crockett, through her principal campaign committee Respondent Jasmine for US, has received thousands of other donations through ActBlue totaling over $870,000,” the FEC complaint says. “It is unclear how many of these are similarly fraudulent transactions, made in the name of unsuspecting innocent people who did not actually provide the funds.”
ActBlue fundraising has faced questions by congressional Republicans and GOP state attorneys general. In a story cited in the FEC complaint, The Daily Signal
previously reported several elderly Americans said they were not aware of ActBlue donations in their name.
The next step is for the respondent—Crockett—to have 15 days to respond to the allegations. The FEC historically grants extensions of 30 and 60 days, Backer said.
Crockett is not alone among Democrats getting donations through the ActBlue portal. Republican state attorneys general, as well as the GOP-controlled House Oversight and Accountability Committee, opened an investigation into ActBlue’s fundraising practices.
For its part, ActBlue has consistently said it follows the law, and the attacks are partisan.
The Daily Signal reached out to Crockett’s congressional office, Crockett’s campaign, and to ActBlue with email inquiries. None responded.
An FEC spokesperson told The Daily Signal the agency cannot comment on a pending case until the matter is resolved.
“It could be a reasonable defense for Rep. Crockett and other Democrats to say, ‘We didn’t solicit those donations, they all came in from ActBlue,’” Backer said in an interview. “But that would be wilful blindness.”
“The problem is legally, the campaign committee treasurer is responsible for due diligence,” Backer continued. “The treasurer could say, ‘We had absolute confidence in ActBlue.’ But ActBlue has been under investigation by state and federal authorities. That excuse might have worked a year ago.”
