The co-founder of ActBlue, the Democrats' $20 billion fundraising machine, invoked his Fifth Amendment right and walked out of a closed-door House deposition in under 30 minutes rather than answer questions about whether foreign money is flowing into American campaigns through his platform. Matt DeBergalis was deposed Thursday morning by three House committees — Administration, Oversight, and Judiciary — investigating whether ActBlue's lax fraud controls let foreign donations slip into U.S. elections. Fox News saw him enter and exit the committee room in roughly 25 minutes, according to the New York Post. That's not cooperation. That's a man with something to hide — or at least something he'd rather the American people not hear under oath.
This matters because ActBlue isn't some niche operation. It's the dominant fundraising pipeline for Democratic candidates from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Bernie Sanders. Since its founding in 2004, the platform has processed roughly $20 billion for Democratic candidates and liberal causes. If the fraud controls on a platform that size are weak — or deliberately weakened — the integrity of the entire campaign finance system is at stake.
House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., has been pressing ActBlue since 2023 over its failure to require credit card CVV numbers for donations — a basic fraud prevention measure that virtually every online retailer uses. ActBlue has since added the CVV requirement, but Steil told Fox News it remains unclear whether the platform has done enough to root out foreign funds. A joint committee report released in April 2025 found that "ActBlue executives and staff are aware that both foreign and domestic fraudulent actors are exploiting the platform but do not take the threat seriously."
DeBergalis isn't the first ActBlue figure to go silent. Five ActBlue employees pleaded the Fifth on 146 questions during an April deposition, according to the Gateway Pundit. Current CEO Regina Wallace invoked her Fifth Amendment right over 20 times during a House Administration hearing in June. When that many people at one organization refuse to answer that many questions, the pattern speaks for itself.
The New York Post made sure to note that "pleading the Fifth Amendment is not evidence of wrongdoing" and that ActBlue has "repeatedly denied running afoul of the law." Fair enough — the Fifth exists for a reason. But the public also has a right to weigh silence against context. DeBergalis built ActBlue explicitly to bypass traditional fundraising controls, bragging in a 2007 interview that the platform's model — where users recruit from their own social circles — was a "counter-example" to Republican direct-mail advantages. InfluenceWatch documented how ActBlue originally listed every Democrat running in active states and let users funnel money directly to candidates. The question now is whether that same open architecture became a backdoor for foreign cash.
The Gateway Pundit also reported last month that ActBlue and the DNC allegedly funneled approximately $23.3 million through payroll firm Ripping — money taken from unwitting employees. That allegation remains unadjudicated, but it adds to the picture of a platform operating with remarkably little transparency for something handling billions in political donations.
Three House committees. Multiple depositions. A co-founder who walks in and out in 25 minutes. And outside conservative and independent outlets, the corporate press has almost nothing to say about it. When only the outlets the establishment labels "fringe" will cover what happens in the halls of power, it tells you exactly who the mainstream press serves — and it isn't you.
The open question: What did Matt DeBergalis refuse to say in those 25 minutes — and how much foreign money flowed through the gaps while he stayed silent?
