Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign may have illegally paid her boyfriend through a political action committee during her congressional race, a Republican group alleges in a new complaint with the FEC.
The Coolidge Reagan Foundation alleged in the complaint that Brand New Congress PAC paid Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, for marketing services after the PAC was hired by her campaign.
Using the third-party PAC to pay her boyfriend may have violated campaign-finance laws, a lawyer for the Coolidge Reagan Foundation told The Post.
“It is totally legal, as a candidate, to hire family members, people you know to work for you. But they didn’t do that,” said Attorney Dan Backer.
“Instead of paying him directly, they paid him through an intermediary — in order to obscure the fact that they paid him. The FEC should investigate and find out if that’s the case. That’s the allegation,” Backer added.
The Coolidge Reagan Foundation is seeking the FEC to investigate if the campaign violated finance laws that state campaign contributions “shall not be converted by any person to personal use.”
But the PAC that hired Roberts told Fox News, who first reported the story, that all the payments were legally sound.
“[Roberts] is a professional digital marketing and growth consultant who specializes in social media presence and subscriber engagement,” a spokeswoman for Brand New Congress PAC told Fox.
“He was hired through a two-month trial period, beginning on August 3, 2017, and worked through the end of September 2017,” the spokeswoman added. “Services to the Brand New Congress PAC consisted of advertising strategies for potential growth, developing metrics, and aiding in execution of strategy to increase brand awareness for the PAC as a whole.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not immediately respond.
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