Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been hit with another complaint alleging that she had an improper “subsidy scheme” that violated campaign finance laws.
According to Fox News:
The crux of the complaint, which was given exclusively to Fox News in advance of its filing Wednesday, accused Ocasio-Cortez and her campaign manager, Saikat Chakrabarti, of overseeing a “shadowy web” of political action committees (PACs) that allowed them to raise more cash than they could have legally. It also alleged that a limited liability company (LLC) was created to avoid federal expenditure requirements by offering Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic candidates political consulting services at a price so low that the company apparently shut down before the election was even over.
The complaint named Ocasio-Cortez, Chakrabarti (now her chief of staff), the Justice Democrats PAC, the Brand New Congress PAC and Brand New Congress LLC as the overlapping entities that aimed to “subsidize cheap assistance for Ocasio-Cortez and other candidates at rates far below market value.”
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“Chakrabarti was trying to create the Uber for politics,” said Dan Backer, the conservative attorney behind the complaint. “Uber functions because of a massive subsidy from venture capital. Here, it’s subsidized by these PACs to deliver a valuable service that people need and want, but can’t be delivered at the real cost of it.”
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Backer said Brand New Congress LLC was guilty of providing campaign contributions known as “in-kind” expenditures by only charging candidates for a portion of the total cost of the service. Essentially, Backer claimed the company operated at a loss to provide its approved candidates with campaign services on the cheap.
Backer went on to explain that a 1990’s era FEC advisory ruling stated that goods and services provided to campaigns must be provided at fair market value.
