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Rules For Thee, Not For AOC: Congresswoman Fails to Disclose $1M to FEC, Gets Pass.

After a Two Year Probe and Likelihood of Wrongdoing, the FEC Dismisses the Case.


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Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her campaign are guilty of failing to disclose $1 million dollars in expenses. Former Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, funneled the cash through two political action committees —then, into two organizations.

Right-leaning watchdog the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint more than three years ago and, after a two year investigation, it was found that —yes, the shady transactions likely did violate FEC guidelines but also, the FEC doesn’t care.

According to the New york Post, “The FEC found that two political action committees — Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats — ‘did not properly disclose the purpose of the disbursements’ to similarly named shell companies set up by AOC’s former chief of staff Chaikat Sakrabarti during her first run for Congress in 2018.”

Despite these findings, the FEC has dismissed the complaint filed by the NLPC.

“The FEC has gone after a whole host of people whose violations are dwarfed by the scale of this scheme,” Paul Kamenar, the attorney for the NLPC, said in a statement to the outlet. “It appears to be not prosecutorial discretion, but prosecutorial favoritism.”

“Those cash transfers from two political action committees to Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats may have violated the $5,000 contribution limit to federal candidates, the original complaint alleged,” the Post reports.

“The FEC waited for more than 30 days to publicly disclose their investigative findings, according to the NLPC, perhaps in an effort to avoid a legal challenge, a spokesman for the NLPC said.”

“It was highly irregular for the FEC to release its statement of reasons after the deadline for us to file suit,” said Tom Anderson, director of the NLPC’s Government Integrity Project.

Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly denied the allegations; Chakrabarti now works as president of New Consensus, a think tank based in Silicon Valley and has helped found both the Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats. The goal? Bringing new progressive members like AOC to Congress.

“After starting Brand New Congress, he formed a Delaware-based LLC, Brand New Campaign LLC. Shifting the funds avoided detailed disclosure requirements of itemized expenses.”

Really, FEC? ‘Nothing to see here,’ is what we’re going with? Because it sounds like Chakrabarti is exploiting every loophole you have.