EXCLUSIVE — The top Democratic fundraising software ActBlue has severed ties with an anti-Israel group accused of being linked to Palestinian terrorism and violating federal law, the Washington Examiner has learned.
ActBlue’s charity platform has facilitated payments since at least 2021 for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee that is affiliated with entities designated by the United States as terrorist groups, according to archived software records and multiple reports. However, ActBlue is no longer allowing PACBI to solicit contributions on its platform because it apparently flouted its user guidelines.
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“We implemented an Account Use Policy earlier this year,” Morgan Hill, an ActBlue spokeswoman, told the Washington Examiner. “We reviewed PACBI’s account during the process of standing up the AUP and determined they were not in compliance with the policy. It was a clerical error that the account remained active.”
Hill added, “It is now deactivated.”
The revelation, which has not been reported until now, comes years after Republicans and the pro-Israel Zachor Legal Institute raised concerns over whether ActBlue has unlawfully provided material support to terrorism by working with PACBI. The group is based in the West Bank and is the “face” of the BDS National Committee, according to a 2019 report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a foreign policy think tank.
The committee has included Palestinian National and Islamic Forces, a coalition represented by U.S.-designated terror groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Palestinian Liberation Front, and others, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the BDS coalition website, and the U.S. State Department.
Meanwhile, PACBI is a project of Alliance for Global Justice, an Arizona charity the Washington Examiner has reported is linked to Palestinian terrorism and fundraising through PayPal after both Stripe and Salsa Labs dropped it, emails reveal. Fiscal sponsorship allows a charity to lend its tax-exempt status to a project and often entails providing payroll, employee benefits, and fundraising services, according to the National Council of Nonprofits.
The Washington Examiner obtained a “thank you” email from PACBI to a donor who gave $5 that listed the employee identification number PACBI uses, 52-2094677, which matches that of the Alliance. Moreover, a private foundation called Cultures of Resistance Network Foundation sent a $10,000 grant to the Alliance in 2020 and earmarked it for PACBI, tax records show.
However, internationally operating entities using ActBlue must have their own EIN number and not be fiscally sponsored, according to its policies. They also must be “headquartered (and have a mailing address) within the United States or its territories,” and “cannot fundraise directly for foreign elections, government, military, or on behalf of international political parties or organizations.”
ActBlue also does not work with organizations that are “at odds” with “social equality, women’s rights, LGBTQIA2S+ rights, racial justice, diversity, freedom of speech, disability rights, and respect for scientific inquiry, discovery, and data,” according to its policies.
“Congress has a role to play investigating reports that ActBlue has been facilitating fundraising for an entity controlled by designated foreign terrorist organizations — allegedly for years,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Expect a comprehensive review into this.”
“ActBlue scrambling to cut them off definitely leaves more questions than answers,” Issa added.
As of this writing, a search of PACBI in ActBlue’s database draws no search results. PACBI is, however, currently fundraising “on behalf of the BDS movement,” on the coalition’s website. The BDS website still lists a disclaimer on its website from its sponsor, the Alliance, that was published after Salsa Labs dropped it, declaring, “We are unable to accept online donations at this time, however are processing paper checks.”
The Alliance sponsors around 140 global entities, including Samidoun, an Israeli-designated terror coalition that has shared employees with the Popular Front terrorist group and organized “campaigns that support and/or glorify convicted terrorists,” according to the Alliance’s website and Zachor Legal Institute.
“Like a number of other front groups used by Palestinian Arab terror organizations, PACBI’s immediate goal is to sanitize fundraising for the terror organizations that are prohibited from raising funds in the U.S.,” said Marc Greendorfer, Zachor’s president. “PACBI’s ultimate goal is also the same as the terror organizations it supports: the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland.”
ActBlue also appears to have violated anti-money laundering laws, according to Greendorfer. Alan Dye, a longtime attorney specializing in nonprofit organizations, said PACBI could have run afoul of IRS rules by enabling activity that seemingly goes against public policy.
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“It’s shocking, but not surprising, that the top fundraising platform used by Democrats — including by declared Democratic candidates in NY-17 — had reportedly, for several years, facilitated payments to an anti-Israel, pro-BDS hate group controlled by a coalition of organizations that the United States and other nations have designated as terror organizations,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), a House Foreign Affairs Committee member, told the Washington Examiner.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel did not return a request for comment.
