FBI agents raided the headquarters of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative on June 11 and fanned out across the state to question members of the nonprofit, sometimes arriving with subpoenas and demands to seize electronic devices, according to a Fox News report citing MS Now’s initial account of the operation.
A day after the raid, multiple sources familiar with the events told CBS News that the operations were part of a fraud-related investigation. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the specifics but did not deny the probe’s existence.
The Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a nonprofit that works closely with the Democratic Party in Ohio on voter mobilization and registration, draws from a donor network that includes the Soros family’s philanthropies, the New Venture Fund, the Tides Foundation, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union. Recent tax documents show OOC pulled in more than $10 million in revenue during 2024. The group did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
This is not the first time OOC has attracted federal scrutiny over the integrity of its voter-related work. In 2017, a paid canvasser working with the group pleaded guilty over his involvement in a fraudulent voter registration operation. That episode raised questions about the organization’s internal controls, questions that the current investigation may revisit on a far larger scale.
The financial pipeline behind OOC is substantial. The Soros family’s Foundation to Promote Open Society gave the group roughly $1.9 million between 2019 and 2020. The Open Society Action Fund then directed $1 million to OOC’s sister organization, the Ohio Organizing Campaign, in 2021, followed by another $1 million in 2023.
OOC has used that money to shape Ohio’s political landscape. The group spent $250,000 in 2023 to oppose a GOP-led effort to block the right to an abortion from being enshrined in the state constitution. A year later, it spent a further $300,000 fighting a Republican redistricting effort.
None of that political activity is inherently illegal. But when a group with that kind of money, that kind of donor base, and a prior fraud conviction draws a federal raid and statewide subpoena operation, the scale of the law enforcement response suggests investigators believe they have something worth pursuing.
A DOJ official offered a measured but telling statement about the operation:
“Search warrants are authorized by a judge and anything said by any organization or others in the media is unfounded speculation, as the target of any investigation is not privy to the search warrant affidavit until after indictment.”
That language is worth parsing. The official did not deny a search warrant was executed. The official did not call the reports inaccurate. Instead, the DOJ reminded the public that a judge authorized whatever warrants were served, and that OOC itself would not know the full scope of the investigation until after any indictment.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had appeared at a news conference in Ohio on June 4, flanked by federal and state officials, to discuss the Trump administration’s broader fraud crackdown. One week later, FBI agents were inside OOC’s headquarters.
Prentiss Haney, an OOC board member authorized to speak for the group, characterized the federal scrutiny as political intimidation. Haney told reporters:
“How can they distract and intimidate [civil rights] leaders and voters and community leaders who are helping people get registered to vote, and create a national spectacle about it?”
Haney went further, insisting the timing was the tell:
“That is the only reason why they would choose to do that, do it now, in the middle of a contested political election in the state. There’s no other reason. They have no evidence of that.”
The claim that federal investigators “have no evidence” is a bold assertion from someone who, by the DOJ’s own statement, would not be privy to the search warrant affidavit. A judge reviewed that affidavit and found probable cause sufficient to authorize the warrant. Haney’s complaint amounts to asking the public to take OOC’s word over a federal judge’s finding.
The “political intimidation” defense has become reflexive in these situations. An organization backed by major Democratic donors and aligned unions faces a law enforcement action, and the immediate response is to frame the investigation itself as the offense. The underlying facts, the prior fraud conviction, the scale of the donor network, the statewide deployment of agents, get buried beneath accusations of partisan overreach.
But federal search warrants are not issued on a whim. They require an affidavit laying out probable cause, reviewed and signed by a judge. FBI agents do not deploy across an entire state to question members of an organization and demand electronic devices as a casual exercise. Whatever investigators found persuasive enough to present to a judge, it was enough to green-light a significant operation.
The specifics of the alleged fraud have not been disclosed. No arrests have been reported in connection with the June 11 raid. It is unclear what devices, if any, were successfully seized, or how many OOC members were questioned. The court that authorized the search warrant has not been identified publicly, nor has the scope of the affidavit been revealed.
These gaps matter. An investigation is not a conviction. But the known facts, a judge-authorized raid, statewide subpoena service, a prior fraud guilty plea, millions in revenue from politically aligned donors, form a picture that warrants serious public attention, not dismissal as political theater.
OOC’s donor list reads like a directory of the institutional left’s biggest financial players. The Soros philanthropies, the New Venture Fund, the Tides Foundation, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers, these are not small community donors. They are organizations that move large sums into political infrastructure. When the nonprofit on the receiving end of that money draws a federal fraud investigation, the public has every right to ask what that money was doing and whether the systems meant to ensure lawful voter registration were working.
Voter registration is a civic good. No serious person disputes that. But voter registration fraud is a crime, and organizations that handle the mechanics of democracy owe the public more than indignation when federal agents come asking questions.
OOC had a canvasser plead guilty to fraud in 2017. It took in more than $10 million in a single year. It spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on partisan ballot fights. And now federal investigators, armed with a judge’s authorization, have raided its headquarters and served subpoenas across Ohio.
Haney says there is “no other reason” for the investigation besides political intimidation. A federal judge apparently disagreed.
When organizations that claim to protect democracy refuse to answer questions about how they operate, the rest of us are entitled to wonder what they’re protecting.
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