Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slammed With Third Ethics Complaint
Freshman congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now the subject of a third ethics complaint, according to the Daily Mail. Dan Backer, an attorney for the conservative Coolidge Reagan Foundation, filed the charges with the Federal Election Commission earlier today.
Backer alleges that Ocasio-Cortez, often known as AOC, bypassed campaign contribution laws by paying a company that provided fundraising, organizing, and other services, substantially under market value.
The company, named Brand New Congress LLC, was founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional chief of staff. Chakrabarti originally worked as AOC’s campaign manager and helped pull off her incredible upset victory.
The company worked for 13 campaigns, including Ocasio-Cortez’s. Backer claims that the company only received $173,101 in payment from the campaigns, despite completing “over $1 million” worth of work.
Backer has referred to Brand New Congress as a “dark-money slush fund.”
The complaint further alleges that Brand New Congress then received $867,014 from two Democratic super PACs to cover its losses. By paying the company instead of the candidate, Backer claims that the super PACs were able to bypass the $10,000 campaign contribution limit.
“Through this complex web of shadowy entities, Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti ensured the flow of hundreds of thousands of dollars of unreported, illegal, dark money contributions to aid the campaigns of Ocasio-Cortez and other far-left Progressive Democrats.”
Though the former bartender did not respond to a request for comment, one of the two super PACs involved with Brand New Congress made statements in 2018 about its work with the company.
“Our goal with Brand New Congress was to recruit candidates who were not thinking about running already and to actually fully run all of their campaigns as if it was one big presidential race.”
The filing comes in the midst of a busy week for the passionate lawmaker.
As covered by The Inquisitr, the congresswoman was recently the target of negative chants at a rally for President Donald Trump last week, in which the crowd chanted “AOC sucks.” Ocasio-Cortez responded to the chants by saying that Trump needs “a woman to vilify.”
Ocasio-Cortez also faced criticism after claiming on a night hall event with MSNBC host Chris Hayes that the 22nd amendment was passed by Congress to stop President Franklin D. Roosevelt from being reelected to a fifth term. The 22nd amendment was passed two years after Roosevelt’s death in 1945.
This is not the first time Backer has filed a complaint against the 29-year-old. In February, he alleged that Ocasio-Cortez improperly gave boyfriend Riley Roberts an official government email address. The congresswoman fired back, saying that many spouses received government emails in order to access work calendars.
Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time.
Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 15, 2019
Backer has said that his motivation to target Ocasio-Cortez is due to his deep “disdain for socialism.” To pursue this goal, the Washington, D.C., lawyer founded his own PAC, pointedly named “Stop AOC.”
