AOC Still In Hot Water With Ethics Committee

AOC Still In Hot Water With Ethics Committee

AOC Still In Hot Water With Ethics Committee

Maybe the dress AOC wore to the Met Gala back in 2021 should have said “watch my ethics” instead of “tax the rich.”

Well, it turns out that the House Ethics Committee, after receiving complaints regarding both AOC’s attendance at the Met Gala, and the dress she wore and all the glamour services she used, looked at the report and the evidence from the Office of Congressional Ethics and decided… well, there might be a problem here. So the House Ethics Committee released the report to the public, and announced that the investigation is continuing.

There is “substantial reason to believe” that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) accepted “impermissible gifts” in connection to her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021, according to a newly disclosed report from the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).”

The OCE Board voted unanimously in June of last year to recommend further investigation into the matter as Ocasio-Cortez “may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” per the report.”

“The Board recommends that the Committee further review the above allegation concerning Rep. Ocasio-Cortez because there is substantial reason to believe that she accepted impermissible gifts associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021,” the report says.”


Just so you remember what AOC was up to, here she was at the event, in a dress designed by Aurora James (who is standing next to AOC in the video below), who AOC once billed as an “Black woman immigrant designer.”

James is originally from Canada, just so we’re clear. But she did design the dress, and worked with AOC’s office to make sure that the congresswoman looked “elegant” and “understated” but not “rich.” James apparently refused to cooperate with the OCE investigation, according to their report (page 5) and the report recommended issuing a subpoena to James, but the Committee has the text messages between James and AOC staffers. While many are blacked out for the public, they discussed her “look” for the Met Gala on page 20 of the Exhibits pdf. There’s quite the paper trail from both the designer and the lawyers, trying to figure out how to get AOC to the Met Gala without violating the gifts clause. Well, doesn’t look like they were successful – mostly because AOC didn’t pay any of the bills until AFTER the Office of Congressional Ethics started investigating, AND one of the businesses involved threatened to file a complaint with New York City’s Office of Labor Policy & Standards (OLPS, referenced in Exhibit 17). The OCE made the referral to the House Ethics Committee, and it is the House Ethics Committee that is saying that there’s something there, there – so the investigation is now going to expand.

Oh, and what is this congresswoman, the champion of the downtrodden, doing? Blaming the help, of course!

According to the nonpartisan ethics agency, AOC’s staff didn’t pay for her rental dress, makeup, and other accessories in a timely way. Comments from the Wall Group, which represented the makeup artist, claimed the progressive firebrand didn’t pay her $477 styling bill until February 2022 – nearly a year after the gala, said Business Insider.”

In an interview with the investigators, Ocasio-Cortez blamed a campaign staffer for failing to pay for her rented dress and other accessories, according to ethics office findings.”

‘And I just never, ever, ever would have allowed that to happen knowing what I have learned, but that I wasn’t privy to the invoices, wasn’t privy to the ones that had been sent,’ she told investigators, ‘And it is just a deeply regrettable situation. I feel l terrible for especially the small businesses that were impacted.’

She did acknowledge to investigators that ‘there was a ball that was dropped.’

In a statement, David Mitrani, Ocasio-Cortez’s lawyer, said the congresswoman ‘finds these [payment] delays unacceptable, and she has taken several steps to ensure nothing of this nature will ever happen again.’

Mitrani’s emails figure prominently in the Exhibits pdf, where he is working hard with the Met Gala’s representatives to find a way for AOC to attend, and trying to figure out how to make it all work within the gift rules (the emails are within Exhibits 9 and 11), and then trying to get the stories straight on WHO exactly invited AOC to the gala in the first place (Exhibit 13). The bottom line is that everyone in the loop knew that AOC was a guest of Vogue Magazine – not the Metropolitan Museum of Art itself. The Met issued the invitations, but it was Anna Wintour who got AOC invited – which the staffers and legal tried to use as a screen to avoid the fact that Vogue Magazine was involved at all. What’s the difference? Well, the Met is registered as a 501(c)3 charity, which AOC could accept an invitation from. Vogue? Not so much, and legal knew that (pages 2 through 6 of Exhibit 9). The emails after the fact (Exhibit 14) note that there is trouble, and the Met tries to help AOC’s legal counsel by “threading the needle” and saying that “Anna Wintour – a Met Trustee and organizer of the event – invited AOC as a guest of the Museum.” Lauren Hitt, AOC’s communications director, replies with “unfortunately that still doesn’t work.” They then tried saying that “Met trustee Anna Wintour invited AOC, who was a guest of the Museum” (Exhibit 14, page 70 of the pdf), which AOC’s office then agrees to. You can see the semantic hair-splitting that was happening behind the scenes – and why the House Ethics Committee is not just going to give this a pass.

The Report and Findings pdf is pretty damning, especially when it gets to the delays of payment for the services rendered. Yes, I know AOC isn’t opening her own mail and paying her own bills. Still, throwing the staff under the bus when you are supposedly a champion for the little guy and small businesses is a bad, bad look.

So, how much trouble is AOC in? With this kind of evidence, she’s headed for a slap on the hands in the form of a fine, most likely. Her lawyer is still trying to put the best spin possible on the extension of the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, but coupled with the release of the OCE’s report, there’s not much good that can be spun here. This won’t get AOC kicked out of Congress, but it will be a huge embarrassment to her. But maybe it will serve as a reminder that she was elected to Congress to WORK, not be a celebrity.

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