Payments to corporation owned by Ocasio-Cortez aide come under scrutiny
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)’s chief of staff helped establish two political action committees that paid a corporation he ran more than $1 million in 2016 and 2017, federal campaign finance records show.
Brand New Congress LLC, the corporation owned by Saikat Chakrabarti, was also paid $18,880 for strategic consulting by Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign in 2017, records show. The following year, he worked as a volunteer to manage her campaign, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The arrangement, first reported by conservative outlets, left hidden who ultimately profited from the payments — a sharp juxtaposition with Ocasio-Cortez’s calls for transparency in politics. She has called dark money “the enemy to democracy.”
The money that flowed to her chief of staff’s corporation have subjected the first-term congresswoman to critics’ charges of hypocrisy. On Monday, a conservative group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the PACs failed to properly disclose their spending.
David Mitrani, attorney for the PACs, the LLC and Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, said in a statement Tuesday that all four entities “fully complied with the law and the highest ethical standards.”
He said that Chakrabarti never received any salary or profit from the corporation, the PACs or the campaign.
“There is no violation” of campaign finance law, Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News on Tuesday. It is unclear whether she had knowledge of the payments to Chakrabarti’s corporation.
Limited-liability corporations, which in some states are not required to disclose details about their owners or spending, have played an increasing role in politics in recent years. Critics say such entities allow both donors and vendors to mask their activities, making it difficult for the public to trace who is giving to campaigns and profiting from them.
Brand New Congress LLC, initially called Brand New Campaign LLC, was formed by Chakrabarti to serve as a “campaign in a box, a one-stop vendor for communications, field, online organizing, fundraising and the like,” Mitrani said in his statement.
Among its clients were two PACs — Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress — which worked to recruit progressive and nontraditional candidates to run for Congress, he said.
Chakrabarti identifies himself as a co-founder of both groups on his LinkedIn page.
In 2016 and 2017, the two PACs reported paying the LLC $1.07 million, records show.
Campaign finance experts said the relationship between Chakrabarti’s PACs and the limited-liability corporation obfuscated who received the payments — and raised questions about who benefited.
“In a normal situation, if all you saw was a PAC that disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars to an affiliated entity to pay the salaries of people who were really working for the PAC, that looks like . . . a PAC that takes in money to engage in political activity but is actually enriching its owners,” said Adav Noti, former Federal Election Commission lawyer who is now chief of staff of the Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for greater transparency in campaign finance.
In his statement, Mitrani said that the PACs did not disclose information about the ultimate recipients of the money because they were not required to do so by the FEC.
“If the PACs and campaigns were required to provide additional information on subvendor payments made by Brand New Congress LLC, it would have done so,” he wrote.
He provided a January 2017 contract between the Justice Democrats PAC and the LLC showing that the corporation charged the PAC a monthly retainer fee of $60,000. The fee was to pay employees, subcontractors and agents, according to the contract.
The contract shows that the primary consultants for the project were Chakrabarti; Nasim Thompson, then the LLC’s chief operating officer; and Corbin Trent, a consultant who is now a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez.
michelle.lee@washpost.com
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent.
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I guess it's only 'dark' if it isn't hers.
Someone else already posted this.
Yawn
I don't see where this was posted. Please provide a link.
I think you can figure that out yourself.
See John Russell's comment below dear.
Still waiting for that link...dear.
Keep waiting.
It was there yesterday, based on the Washington Examiner article.
It appears to have been deleted by the seeder.
Wasn't this article seeded and discussed yesterday? It is hard to keep up with all the AOC bashing on this site.
It's a frenzy !
yesterday's outrag was she actually had the audacity, to get from place to place,
in,
dare i say it,
A CAR !
This woman knows no boundaries damnet .
No harder than keeping up with the Trump Bashing Sites !
I've done a search and I do not see this article.
AOC is creating her own issues...whether she preaches Green New Deal while taking a plane instead of a train, or touts that the 3 Billion (of lost tax revenue from the broken Amazon deal) could be spent on 'other things'...or claims that dark money is evil, while LLCs that she may have ties to receive PAC funds.
So only republicans are to receive PAC funds? Or Rump?
Putin pac ked 'Rump' ?
PAC funds that go to an LLC are reported. What that LLC does with the funds received from the PAC are NOT reported...and that's where the issue becomes 'dark'.
Sez the leader of the Trump Bashers, eh?
Miss "Transparency" has a lot of serious legal 'splainin' to do. Here's some more info:
Also, it's highly unusual and suspect when the candidate and chief of staff are simultaneously on the board of directors.
Is this like Rump's slush fund/charity where he diverted funds for porn stars and playboy models and buying those portraits of himself for $60,000 to hang at white trash resort MarALago, among other things?
The charity issue has already gone to trial and been settled. I believe that Trump has turned over the charity and is no longer associated with it as part of the settlement.
As for misuse of campaign funds to silence women had had affairs with. Believe heir Mueller already has that under litigation. The liar Cohen is already answering for that crime.
So Trump is being investigated already, and has lawsuits finalized or pending. Are you against AOC, or any Democrat, being held accountable when they break the law? Or are you trying to deflect what she did by bringing Trump into the conversation.
Don't see that this thread is about Trump - but, you already knew that, eh?
Who is heir Mueller?
new basketball player ?
No it isn't. Try reading the article. It has nothing to do with President Trump.
Such reputable sources you got there Jasper.
The right wing smear never ends. AOC is frightful for some.
The only 'legal splainin' that needs to be done is everything and everybody who has the ethical and political misfortune to associate themselves to anything and everything that touches the Trumps'.
yea Ricky
So, you don't care about the law, only getting Trump. We see how it is.
Uh...………..yeah sure. Helsinki and WikiLeaks.
"We see?" No. You don't.
Unless you can prove Trumps involvement then Wikileaks has nothing to do with him. That's between Assange and wherever he got his hacks from. And aside from being the capital of Finland there's nothing relevant about Helsinki.
What laws were violated? Please state which ones.
what is his lawyer going to jail for again...'
Trump is a co conspirator in some of his crimes, but you knew that old thing
I N joy , violating the law of gravity, while swatting flies off the face of reason
but i use as a fly swatter, a stationary object found on my stationary desk that keeps me moving things with my mind, but i don't mind, as my stationary desk has casters so what flies, can be fished through, in my eyes, and cast away but not like Tom Hanks' Wilson, more like Gump's Forrest Woodroe
a boat load of shrimp, into a Jumbo Gumbo
Oh, yes, Cohen admitted to violating campaign finance law, but that isn't Trump who violated the law is it?
ive seen "experts' on all sides state that if Trump was not POTUS, he would be under indictment as well.
Stupid rule, a sitting President can't be charged with a crime....
wait till he stands up , i guess
Isn't that funny how socialists have their own set of rules they live by while forcing others to have less? Seems to happen every single time.
AOC is now a part of the government that will always maintain 'control' in any socialist plan.
And, she is not the only Democratic Freshman with a campaign finance violation:
Rep. Tlaib paid herself after the campaign was over and paid more than what she would have earned in the previous year. Both of which are violations of campaign finance law.
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I think you should maybe give it a try at least that way you would be more informed and not have to deflect every seed to President Trump.
I will just say, without commenting on the voracity of the accusations, if this concerns conservatives, prove you really care. That would mean you have to discuss Trump and what he is accused of with the same zeal. Because this one sided quest for 'justice' is wrong. The gop is acting as if Trump is above the law. Don't bother whining about anything if you can't support the same standard for your side. Who cares what people who have no standards or concern for the truth think about anything?
Back at ya.
That's rich.
Where ?
and why not a capitol R
I hope Rich is not really a non dairy creamery with artificial cows that produce intolerance while lacktating Larry
Tate is doin Darren at the Dock Door adjacent to the Bombay so he came right away, cause what exactly are you fellers attempting to say here ?
AOC is a Politician... ? and this is wwhat politix has become in this country.
I' may need a pinch of more proof to believe this ole story, from an unbiased assessment, that might clarify what is legal, what is crossing the line(in the era of Trumpp, PLEASE) that has so many panties in a bunch of so many panties, cause i do believe if you're gonna talk the talk, just walk, or take the subway we know Jared still does, as he, in Trumptradition, prefers the Low road
under a bridge spanning a tunnel vision sight unseen so open the Endora while closing the people Bwitched into seeing if AOC floats