Good day all. Socialist darling Alexandria Occasional-Cortex has been in office less than three months and she’s already looking at ethics charges and possible legal problems due to her campaign’s financing.
It seems that about $1 million dollars has gone missing, and the Federal Elections Commission would like to know where it is. Here are some of the details from Fox News:
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Saikat Chakrabarti, the progressive firebrand’s multimillionaire chief of staff, apparently violated campaign finance law by funneling nearly $1 million in contributions from political action committees Chakrabarti established to private companies that he also controlled, according to an explosive complaint filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and obtained by Fox News.
Amid the allegations, a former FEC commissioner late Monday suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ocasio-Cortez and her team could separately be facing major fines and potentially even jail time if they were knowingly and willfully violating the law by hiding their control of the Justice Democrats political action committee (PAC). Such an arrangement could have allowed Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign to receive donations in excess of the normal limit, by pooling contributions to both the PAC and the campaign itself.
I’ll be honest and say that I don’t think Occasional-Cortex had any real knowledge of this scam. That would require intelligence, and as we’ve seen, she’s not the brightest bulb in the lamp. As for her Chief of Staff? Yeah, I think he knew about it and understood perfectly well that it was illegal. Any campaign would have a lawyer on staff, or on retainer who was conversant with the election laws, and he or she would have told them this was illegal.
The FEC complaint asserts that Chakrabarti established two PACs, the Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats PAC, and then systematically transfered more than $885,000 in contributions received by those PACs to the Brand New Campaign LLC and the Brand New Congress LLC — companies that, unlike PACs, are exempt from reporting all of their significant expenditures. The PACs claimed the payments were for “strategic consulting.”
Hmm, I wonder if this was the same sort of “Strategic Consulting that Bubba Horndog and Felonia von Pantsuit are well known for.
Although large financial transfers from PACs to LLCs are not necessarily improper, the complaint argues that the goal of the “extensive” scheme was seemingly to illegally dodge detailed legal reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which are designed to track campaign expenditures.
It appears ‘strategic consulting’ was a mischaracterization of a wide range of activities that should have been reported individually,” the complaint states.
Now the initial complaint was filed by a conservative group called the National Legal and Policy Center out of Virginia. Now, before you start screaming “Witch hunt!!” because of who they are looking at, and the fact that they would be accused of everything under the sun by the Progressives, they did extensive documentation.
The funds, the NLPC writes, were likely spent on campaign events for Ocasio-Cortez and other far-left Democratic candidates favored by Chakrabarti, who made his fortune in Silicon Valley and previously worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. But no precise accounting for the expenses is available, and the complaint asks the FEC to conduct an investigation into the matter immediately.
“These are not minor or technical violations,” Tom Anderson, director of NLPC’s Government Integrity Project, said in a statement. “We are talking about real money here. In all my years of studying FEC reports, I’ve never seen a more ambitious operation to circumvent reporting requirements. Representative Ocasio-Cortez has been quite vocal in condemning so-called dark money, but her own campaign went to great lengths to avoid the sunlight of disclosure.”
As to why AOC and her Chief of Staff thought they didn’t have to follow the rules? It’s the old story of “The ends justify the means.”
Added Anderson: “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.”
Congratulations, you just won a cookie. That is the standard mindset of the Liberal Progressive Democrat. To them, Leona Helmsley had the right idea. The rules are for the “Little People, not us.”
“Certainly, it’s not permissible to use an LLC or any other kind of intermediary to conceal the recipient or purpose of a PAC’s spending,” Former FEC Associate General Counsel for Policy Ada Noti said. “The law requires the PAC to report who it disburses money to. You can’t try to evade that by routing it through an LLC or corporation or anyone else.”
Noti added: “What’s so weird about this situation is that the PAC that disbursed so much of its money to one entity that was so clearly affiliated with the PAC. Usually, that’s a sign that it’s what’s come to be known as a ‘scam PAC’ — one that’s operated for the financial benefit of its operators, rather than one designed to engage in political activity.”
Uh Oh!! If this is at all accurate, someone is going to jail. The only question is, who? Will it be the Chief of Staff, or the Socialist hypocrite? If Saikat Chakrabarti ends up getting indicted, will he “Do the right thing and fall on his sword” to protect Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, or will he roll over on her and drag her down as well?
Amid the allegations, a former FEC commissioner late Monday suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ocasio-Cortez and her team could separately be facing major fines and potentially even jail time if they were knowingly and willfully violating the law by hiding their control of the Justice Democrats political action committee (PAC).
You know, instead of insulting the Clintons, perhaps they should have called them for advice in laundering the money handling their campaign finances. They are the preeminent experts in hiding bribes. In any case, it’s very early in the investigation. It’s possible that this is nothing more than sheer incompetence by Occasional-Cortex and Chakrabarti. Personally, I don’t think so, but I’m willing to wait and see.
Thatisall
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