Just two weeks ago we wrote here about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s swamp issues regarding campaign payments to her boyfriend, Riley Roberts. Well, there is more to the story. The latest centers around the two PAC’s and two LLC’s that her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, set up. Keep in mind, this is what Roberts was paid during the campaign.

“Brand New Congress PAC paid Roberts $3,000 on August 9th:

Eighteen days later, AOC’s campaign paid Brand New Congress LLC $6,191.32:

A month later Brand New Congress PAC then turned around and paid Riley Roberts another $3,000.”

It gets swampier. As the Washington Examiner reported last night, both the PAC’s and LLC’s were engaged in funneling money around. Well over $1 million in fact, and now a complaint has been filed with the FEC.

PAC’s are required by the FEC to disclose how, where, and what the donations are used for. This doesn’t seem to be the case here. Chakrabarti set up two PAC’s. Brand New Congress in 2016, and Justice Democrats in 2017. Both PAC’s raised about $3.3 million dollars. Was anything disclosed to FEC? Not that anyone can find. Instead…

Over the next seven months, as small-dollar political donations poured into the PAC from progressives across the country, the committee transferred over $200,000, 82 percent of the contributions, to the company Brand New Campaign LLC. The payments were for “strategic consulting,” according to federal election filings. They were sent to an apartment address listed for Chakrabarti in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan.

In 2017, Brand New Congress PAC transferred another $240,000 to Brand New Congress LLC, also for “strategic consulting.” Another PAC co-founded by Chakrabarti that year, Justice Democrats, transferred an additional $605,000 to Brand New Congress LLC in 2017. [Emphasis Added]

That’s a LOT of money floating around! The spokespeople for the PAC’s don’t seem to have any answers and in fact, kept referring the questions to Chakrabarti himself! Yet supposedly he’s had nothing to do with the PAC’s or the LLC’s since the campaign started.

Zeynab Day, communications director for the Brand New Congress PAC, said Chakrabarti was not currently affiliated with the group and that it recently went through a “transition period.” She referred questions about the LLC to Chakrabarti. “I’m unable to answer any questions about the LLC … I am not informed about them. We are not an affiliated group,” she said.

A spokesperson for Justice Democrats said he did not know why the PAC paid so much money to Chakrabarti’s LLCs. When asked what the Justice Democrats PAC does on a daily basis, he said, “It’s very clear what we do,” but declined to elaborate.

Chakrabarti founded Brand New Congress PAC, in April 2016. According to a statement released by Justice Democrats PAC last May, Chakrabarti “was the only controlling member” of the company Brand New Congress LLC and “took no salary.” The statement added: “Saikat is lucky to have a small side business that generates him enough income that he is able to do all of this work as a volunteer.”

‘a small side business?’ I busted out laughing when I read that bit! Want to know who Chakrabarti is aside from him supposedly being this Silicon Valley tech guru? He worked on Bernie Sanders campaign before joining forces with AOC. This is what he had to say about AOC going to DC last winter.

Interesting isn’t it? AOC is under pressure to not step out of line and to do the right thing. But the process of becoming a congressperson is soooo opaque! Don’t do anything radical!

I guess funneling money from two PAC’s to one’s personal LLC’s isn’t radical? The Socialist Party doesn’t think so, and in fact got their shorts in a bunch because we dare question the Queen!

Let’s get this straight. Are you accusing her of knowing that this was happening, is that correct?

— The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) March 5, 2019

Let's get this straight. Are you accusing @AOC of being so incompetent that she lost track of $1 million worth of donations, which her chief of staff conveniently funneled into private companies that skirted federal reporting requirements? https://t.co/yGNYJN4i8Z

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) March 5, 2019

OUCH.

Yes, this entire deal is fishy. A former chair of the FEC, Bradley A. Smith, agrees this doesn’t pass the smell test and suggests that the LLC’s are unregistered committees.

The irony is, AOC is demanding that Congress readjust the focus on Trump. Instead of Russia! Collusion! it should be his taxes and financial statements.

New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took aim at Trump during a presser at her new Queens office.

"While [Trump's] talking collusion, collusion, collusion," she said, "we should be talking about taxes, taxes, taxes and his bank account, bank account, his bank account" pic.twitter.com/7N7d9LqegN

— POLITICO (@politico) March 4, 2019

Well toots, you go first. You’ve spent a lot of time condemning the so-called dark money in campaigns, s your campaign finances should be clean as a whistle…right?

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Feature Photo Credit: James Steidl, Royalty-free stock photo ID: 9217351 via Shutterstock, cropped and modified