Some election integrity researchers are expanding their investigation of politicians who benefitted from questionable “Smurfing” campaign contributions and discovered that Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) received many of them. Smurfing refers to using straw donors to make campaign contributions; usually, elderly and unemployed people are unaware their identities are being used for money laundering. Many contributions are made under one name, sometimes thousands of them, and they are usually small amounts, often around $10 each, to escape detection.
Peter Bernegger, one of the key researchers who discovered the Smurfing phenomenon, posted on X on Tuesday, “Arizona @SenRubenGallego caught Smurfing, i.e. criminally laundering money into his campaign! Note that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a ‘quick’ data run of the top Smurfs found to have had their identities stolen by Gallego’s campaign. Smurfing found by Chris Gleason @immutablechrist Phillip Allison @TheTVConsPiracy , myself and others exposing Smurfing. This is another form of election fraud. We are running all 100 US Senators, Tom Cotton and Jon Ossoff already ran – see the tweets below.”
Gallego significantly outraised Lake in the Senate race. The vast majority of his funding came from out of state, and much of it appears to have been laundered through ActBlue. He raised approximately $36 million in 2024, while Lake raised approximately $17 million.
Congress is investigating ActBlue and Smurfing. Then-Senator Marco Rubio sent a complaint letter to the FEC regarding ActBlue’s failure to require CCV numbers to process credit card donations. ActBlue agreed to require them. In October 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned the FEC to take immediate action to “close fundraising loopholes that jeopardize American election integrity” following his investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue. In August, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to the CEO of ActBlue about the Smurfing allegations. Last fall, 19 state attorneys general began investigating ActBlue.
