Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) concealed thousands of dollars in campaign spending, according to an ethics complaint.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint cites more than $9,600 in reported campaign credit card expenditures that lacked information on the purpose of the charges. Dan Backer filed the complaint on behalf of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a nonprofit organization that’s levied similar complaints.
“This Complaint arises from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s repeated, blatant violations of federal campaign finance law to conceal how she spent thousands of dollars of campaign funds. On numerous occasions throughout 2022, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s authorized candidate committee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress (‘AOC for Congress’), reported tens of thousands of dollars of disbursements for card payments and card payment reimbursements to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez herself; American Express; and an entity called ‘Veyond!,’ which appears to have provided virtual reality services and apparently no longer operates under that name,” the complaint states.
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“In each case, the reports do not fully disclose the purposes of each payment for which the charge card was used; the sum of the specific Memo Item entries is consistently hundreds or even thousands of dollars less than the total amount paid to the recipient. Although campaigns are permitted to use charge cards (or reimburse candidates for use of their personal charge cards) for otherwise permissible campaign-related expense, their disclosure reports must accurately identify both the recipient of those funds, as well as each of the campaign-related goods and services those charge cards were used to purchase,” the complaint adds.
Ocasio-Cortez recently found herself at the center of a different ethics issue, when the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) said she likely violated “standards of conduct” and “federal law” over “impermissible gifts” related to her attendance at the 2021 Met Gala.
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Ocasio-Cortez was accused of an ethics violation after she wore a dress reading “Tax the Rich” to the gala and accepted free tickets to the event that normally start at $35,000.
“While regrettable, this matter definitively does not rise to the level of a violation of House Rules or of federal law,” an attorney for Ocasio-Cortez wrote to the House Ethics Committee.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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