Respected New US Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s Indo-American Aide Accused Of Funneling $1Million Into Private Accounts

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The transfers were made by Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, and may have run afoul of the Federal Election Campaign Act that places a limit of $5,000 on contributions from political action committees to candidates, the Washington Examiner reported Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – A conservative government watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide of funneling $1 million in donations into his private accounts in a possible violation of the law, according to a report.

The transfers were made by Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, and may have run afoul of the Federal Election Campaign Act that places a limit of $5,000 on contributions from political action committees to candidates, the Washington Examiner reported Tuesday.

The complaint, filed Monday by the National Legal and Policy Center, said the transfers violated the law because PACs must disclose what those funds were used for — such as advertisements, payments to vendors and donations to candidates.

The private companies Chakrabarti moved the money to are not subject to those requirements.

The National Legal and Policy Center wants the FEC to audit the two operations in question — Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats PAC — claiming they were part of “an elaborate scheme to avoid proper disclosure of campaign expenditures.”

Tom Anderson, director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s government integrity project, said he’s never seen “a more ambitious operation to circumvent reporting requirements.”

“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,” he said in a statement.

In the same time period, the PACs transferred more than $1 million to two companies controlled by Chakrabarti — Brand New Campaign LLC and Brand New Congress LLC — the newspaper report said, citing federal election filings.

The payments were for “strategic consulting,” according to the filings.

Chakrabarti declined to comment to the Washington Examiner, as did Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez.

The Post reported in its Sunday editions that good-government groups were also raising questions about whether Chakrabarti violated campaign finance laws through payments made and received by the PACs — Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats.