Ken Paxton accused of ignoring Texans who claim life savings were drained by GOP platform
House lawmakers have demanded that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton produce documents related to his lawsuit against ActBlue, a critical Democratic Party fundraising platform, according to the Austin American-Statesman.This lawsuit alleges that ActBlue failed to act sufficiently to prevent illegal donations from foreigners or people who had already hit their campaign contribution limit.The new letter sent by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Robert Garcia (D-CA), and Joseph Morelle (D-NY) accuses Paxton of ignoring far more serious consumer complaints brought against WinRed, the platform Republicans launched as their answer to ActBlue — in particular, the platform's practice of pre-checking a box to make donors' contributions recurring without them intending to do so."While you have done nothing to investigate dozens of such complaints from Texans about being defrauded by WinRed, the platform used to process campaign contributions to Republican candidates and political committees, your office has opened an investigation into an unrelated entity, ActBlue, which processes donations to Democratic candidates and causes," said the letter, noting that Paxton's office has received at least 27 complaints about WinRed, some of them alleging people had their life savings drained from their bank accounts.The lawmakers are demanding Paxton, now the GOP's candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, turn over any documents about the complaints and communications around them, although they cannot compel this by force without Republican votes on the House Oversight Committee.This comes after a federal judge in Massachusetts, where ActBlue is headquartered, already warned Paxton that the ActBlue lawsuit is unlikely to succeed on the merits.
