A Nashville-area woman has made 1,151 contributions to left-wing Political Action Committee (PAC) ActBlue since the beginning of 2023, according to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records.
Those donations add up to 29,000.52 since January 1, 2023, which is 589 days.
Martha Wettemann is listed in the FEC reports as the statistical supervisor of the State of Tennessee. Her Facebook page, which appears to have been inactive since 2020, shows that she has previously supported left-wing causes. She once posted a link to the Facebook page of Moms Demand Action—Tennessee, a gun control group.
Wettemann’s average donation size to ActBlue is $25.19, significantly higher than the average donation sizes of other apparent “ghost donors” that The Tennessee Star has been chronicling. However, she made a 72-cent donation on June 30, an 80-cent donation on June 28, and two 50-cent donations on June 27.
She has allegedly donated about twice a day to ActBlue during this timeframe.
The donations become even more anomalous when filtering Wetteman’s ActBlue donations over her entire lifespan as a donor, which began in 2006.
During that time frame, she has made 7,044 individual contributions to ActBlue for a total of $79,339.72.
If filtering by all recipients of donations from Wettemann since 2006, Wettemann (pictured above, left) has made 10,638 donations to Democrat causes for $182,914.10, or $10,161.88 per year.
Three phone numbers associated with Wettemann were disconnected.
ActBlue is facing increased scrutiny about potentially laundering foreign donations or other nefarious donations through unknowing people who have given legitimately to the PAC at some point but are now being used as “ghost donors.” ActBlue has also been flagged for suspiciously not collecting three-digit security CVV codes from donors’ credit cards, which, in theory, means that donations could be made with prepaid debit cards.
Several politicians say they’re looking into ActBlue, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who demanded an FEC investigation into the PAC.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said last week that he has an active investigation into ActBlue and that the PAC is cooperating.
“ActBlue has cooperated with our ongoing investigation. They have changed their requirements to now include ‘CVV’ codes for donations on their platform. This is a critical change that can help prevent fraudulent donations,” said Paxton in an August 8 press release. “But it is most important that we enforce the law and protect the integrity of our elections. Certain features of campaign finance law may incentivize bad actors to use platforms like ActBlue to covertly move money to political campaigns to evade legal requirements. While campaign finance is protected by the First Amendment, suspicious activity on fundraising platforms must be fully investigated to determine if any laws have been broken.”
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Peter D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Peter on Twitter/X.
Photo “Martha Wettemann” by Frank Einstein.
