The chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may have broken campaign finance laws, according to a report from the New York Post.
Saikat Chakrabarti, 33, founded a PAC called Justice Democrats, which was paid $41,108.59 for “campaign services” and “strategic consulting” by Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign in 2017 and 2018, according to Federal Election Commission filings. But as the Post notes, PACs are barred from offering over $5,000 a year worth of services for any single candidate, per FEC regulations. If candidates exceed that amount, they must consult the FEC.
The Post also noted, “Brand New Congress, another PAC that Chakrabarti founded to support lefty candidates, paid Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend $6,000 in 2017, filings show. The payment to Riley Roberts was made at the same time that Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign paid Brand New Congress LLC $18,880 for ‘strategic consulting.’”
The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed an FEC complaint last week, stating, “The timing and amounts of these transactions, the use of two affiliated entities as intermediaries, the vague and amorphous nature of the services Riley ostensibly provided, the magnitude of these transactions compared to both the limited funds the campaign had raised at the time … and the romantic relationship … collectively establish reason to believe these transactions may have violated campaign finance law.”
Tom Anderson, who supervises the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia, echoed, “They believe their cause is so great that they don’t have to play by the rules. They believe that they are above campaign finance law.”- READ MORE