WASHINGTON (AP) — Freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and several of her allies were accused this week by a conservative group of improperly masking political spending during the 2018 campaign. Ocasio-Cortez is a vocal critic of untraceable money in politics, and the news provoked uproar
from conservative media organizations. Campaign finance experts, however, caution that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. The Associated Press explains:The conservative National Legal and Policy Center argued in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission on Sunday that Ocasio-Cortez and her allies"orchestrated an extensive off-the-books operation.
Records show that in 2016 and 2017 political action committees operated by the groups paid over $1 million to a company that Chakrabarti also ran, which was called Brand New Congress LLC.Ordinarily, individual campaign expenses are reported to the FEC.
For example, an operator of a so-called"scam PAC" could use an LLC to obscure paying themselves money that donors intended to be used for political activity. Former FEC attorney Adav Noti said that much of the coverage of the complaint against Ocasio-Cortez and her advisers was overblown. But he added that it is"completely fair for people to raise questions about the way they structured this."
"When you see this sort of spending pattern, it can be a warning," said Noti, who now works for the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center.David Mitrani, an attorney representing Ocasio-Cortez and the other various groups named in the complaint, said Chakrabarti did not form the LLC to obscure spending. Rather, Mitrani said tax and campaign finance law is vague and they formed the company out of concern that they may otherwise run afoul of the law.
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