Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been making headlines since announcing her run for Congress, and after winning her Congressional seat she has propelled herself as one of the faces of her party. Some within the party agree with the association, and others do not, but new reports bring to the forefront a problem that she vehemently ran against.
Now, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign financing is facing criticism and calls of hypocrisy.
Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign financing is facing backlash for not being as transparent as the freshman congresswoman argued she would be. Even though 61% of the $2 million she raised in her 2018 election win came from supporters that contributed less than $200, her campaign committee and two PACs contributed $900,000 to a consulting company that provided campaign services, and no information was given regarding what the money was used for and how it was received.
What’s being called into question is the fact that Ocasio-Cortez sat on the board of one of her PACs, and both of her PACs were co-founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, who is her chief-of-staff, and he is also the person that ran the consulting firm.
In turn, last week it was reported that both Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti were removed from their leadership positions from the Justice Democrats PAC amid the rise in criticism for shady tactics used during the 2018 election season.
As criticism continues to mount, the Congresswoman from New York took to twitter to call the claims of any mishandling “bogus.” She further explained that “this is how the misinformation machine works, folks.”
Tom Anderson, the director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project, slammed the Middle Seat Consulting LLC, which is the consulting firm that Chakrabarti co-founded. Saying that the firm has “found a way to dodge transparency,” Arnold detailed that “this is the ultimate dark money machine. If you want to go to school to learn how to make a dark money machine in politics, go to these guys because they’ve mastered it.”
