Ocasio-Cortez & her agents stole $1 Million+ into secret slush fund
Mar 4, 2019 21:24:53 #
Los-Angeles-Shooter
Loc: Los Angeles
She's one of the stupidest and bigoted congresscritters. Looks like she's one of the crookedest as well.
Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal E******n Commission on Monday.
The cash t***sfers from the PACs — overseen by Saikat Chakrabarti, the freshman socialist Democrat's chief of staff — run counter to her pledges to increase t***sparency and reduce the influence of "dark money" in politics.
Chakrabarti's companies appear to have been set up for the sole purpose of obscuring how the political donations were used.
The arrangement appears to have violated reporting requirements and may have violated the $5,000 limit on contributions from federal PACs to candidates, according to the complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.
Campaign finance attorneys described the arrangement as “really weird” and an indication "there’s something amiss." They said there was no way of telling where the political donations went — meaning they could have been pocketed or used by the company to pay for off-the-books or illegal campaign operations.
PACs are required to disclose how and when funds are spent, including for expenditures such as advertisements, fundraising emails, donations to candidates, and payments for events and to vendors. This scheme skirted those requirements.
The private companies to which Chakrabarti t***sferred the money from the PACs are not subject to these requirements.
The complaint names Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti as respondents. It asks the FEC to investigate and audit the two PACs, saying they were engaged in an "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: "It appears Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her associates ran an off-the-books operation to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus violating the foundation of all campaign finance laws: t***sparency."
Chakrabarti, 33, is a Harvard graduate and technology entrepreneur who became an organizer for Bernie Sanders during the socialist's 2016 p**********l campaign.
He founded a PAC called Brand New Congress in 2016 and another called Justice Democrats in 2017, with the stated goal of helping elect progressive candidates to Congress. One of those candidates was Ocasio-Cortez, who, last November, age 29, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
According to the Brand New Congress website, the PAC would build a "unified campaign" infrastructure including fundraising, organizing, rallies, and advertising progressive congressional candidates across the country could "plug into," saving the individual campaigns time and money.
"Our idea is really to run a single unified p**********l-style campaign that is going to look a lot like the Bernie Sanders campaign,” said Chakrabarti in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in May 2016. "The campaign infrastructure and fundraising is set aside from the campaigning."
In 2016 and 2017, Chakrabarti’s PACs raised about $3.3 million for the project, primarily from small donors. During this time, the committees t***sferred over $1 million to two shell companies controlled by Chakrabarti with names confusingly similar to one of the PACs, Brand New Campaign LLC and Brand New Congress LLC, according to federal e******n filings.
[Related: AOC 'living wage' rules allow her staff to dodge financial disclosure laws]
A few weeks after starting the Brand New Congress PAC, Chakrabarti formed one of the companies, Brand New Campaign LLC, in Delaware, using a registered agent confidential service and mailbox-only address.
Over the next seven months, as political donations poured into the PAC from progressives across the country, the committee t***sferred over $200,000, 82 percent of the contributions, to the company Brand New Campaign LLC. The payments were for unspecified "strategic consulting," according to federal e******n filings. They were sent to an apartment address listed for Chakrabarti in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan.
In 2017, Brand New Congress PAC t***sferred another $240,000 to Brand New Congress LLC, also for unspecified "strategic consulting." Another PAC co-founded by Chakrabarti that year, Justice Democrats, t***sferred an additional $605,000 to Brand New Congress LLC in 2017.
Brand New Congress LLC does not appear to be registered in any state, according to state government records available online. It is unclear where or when it was incorporated. By law, the LLC is required to be registered.
Adav Noti, the senior director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former FEC lawyer, said the arrangement was highly unusual and seemed intended to obscure the destination of the funds.
"None of that makes any sense," said Noti. "I can't even begin to disentangle that. They're either confused or they're trying to conceal something."
Noti said it would be much simpler and more normal to set up a consulting company and work directly with campaigns to provide services for a fee rather than creating a federal PAC and sending the money to a company controlled by the same person.
"It does seem like there's something amiss. I can only think of really two likely possibilities for this sort of pattern of disbursements," said Noti. "One is the s**m PAC possibility — they're really just paying themselves and they’re concealing it by using the LLC. The other is that there’s actually another recipient, that the money is going to the LLC and then being disbursed in some other way that they want to conceal."
Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, said he has never seen such an arrangement. "It's a really weird situation," he said. "I see almost no way that you can do that without it being at least a reporting violation, quite likely a criminal violation of the contribution limits. You might say from a campaign finance angle that the LLC was essentially operating as an unregistered committee."
Chakrabarti declined to comment on the FEC complaint or provide details about his companies’ financial activities. Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, declined to comment.
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 "t***sition 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 summarize or 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."
Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal E******n Commission on Monday.
The cash t***sfers from the PACs — overseen by Saikat Chakrabarti, the freshman socialist Democrat's chief of staff — run counter to her pledges to increase t***sparency and reduce the influence of "dark money" in politics.
Chakrabarti's companies appear to have been set up for the sole purpose of obscuring how the political donations were used.
The arrangement appears to have violated reporting requirements and may have violated the $5,000 limit on contributions from federal PACs to candidates, according to the complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.
Campaign finance attorneys described the arrangement as “really weird” and an indication "there’s something amiss." They said there was no way of telling where the political donations went — meaning they could have been pocketed or used by the company to pay for off-the-books or illegal campaign operations.
PACs are required to disclose how and when funds are spent, including for expenditures such as advertisements, fundraising emails, donations to candidates, and payments for events and to vendors. This scheme skirted those requirements.
The private companies to which Chakrabarti t***sferred the money from the PACs are not subject to these requirements.
The complaint names Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti as respondents. It asks the FEC to investigate and audit the two PACs, saying they were engaged in an "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: "It appears Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her associates ran an off-the-books operation to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus violating the foundation of all campaign finance laws: t***sparency."
Chakrabarti, 33, is a Harvard graduate and technology entrepreneur who became an organizer for Bernie Sanders during the socialist's 2016 p**********l campaign.
He founded a PAC called Brand New Congress in 2016 and another called Justice Democrats in 2017, with the stated goal of helping elect progressive candidates to Congress. One of those candidates was Ocasio-Cortez, who, last November, age 29, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
According to the Brand New Congress website, the PAC would build a "unified campaign" infrastructure including fundraising, organizing, rallies, and advertising progressive congressional candidates across the country could "plug into," saving the individual campaigns time and money.
"Our idea is really to run a single unified p**********l-style campaign that is going to look a lot like the Bernie Sanders campaign,” said Chakrabarti in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in May 2016. "The campaign infrastructure and fundraising is set aside from the campaigning."
In 2016 and 2017, Chakrabarti’s PACs raised about $3.3 million for the project, primarily from small donors. During this time, the committees t***sferred over $1 million to two shell companies controlled by Chakrabarti with names confusingly similar to one of the PACs, Brand New Campaign LLC and Brand New Congress LLC, according to federal e******n filings.
[Related: AOC 'living wage' rules allow her staff to dodge financial disclosure laws]
A few weeks after starting the Brand New Congress PAC, Chakrabarti formed one of the companies, Brand New Campaign LLC, in Delaware, using a registered agent confidential service and mailbox-only address.
Over the next seven months, as political donations poured into the PAC from progressives across the country, the committee t***sferred over $200,000, 82 percent of the contributions, to the company Brand New Campaign LLC. The payments were for unspecified "strategic consulting," according to federal e******n filings. They were sent to an apartment address listed for Chakrabarti in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan.
In 2017, Brand New Congress PAC t***sferred another $240,000 to Brand New Congress LLC, also for unspecified "strategic consulting." Another PAC co-founded by Chakrabarti that year, Justice Democrats, t***sferred an additional $605,000 to Brand New Congress LLC in 2017.
Brand New Congress LLC does not appear to be registered in any state, according to state government records available online. It is unclear where or when it was incorporated. By law, the LLC is required to be registered.
Adav Noti, the senior director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former FEC lawyer, said the arrangement was highly unusual and seemed intended to obscure the destination of the funds.
"None of that makes any sense," said Noti. "I can't even begin to disentangle that. They're either confused or they're trying to conceal something."
Noti said it would be much simpler and more normal to set up a consulting company and work directly with campaigns to provide services for a fee rather than creating a federal PAC and sending the money to a company controlled by the same person.
"It does seem like there's something amiss. I can only think of really two likely possibilities for this sort of pattern of disbursements," said Noti. "One is the s**m PAC possibility — they're really just paying themselves and they’re concealing it by using the LLC. The other is that there’s actually another recipient, that the money is going to the LLC and then being disbursed in some other way that they want to conceal."
Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, said he has never seen such an arrangement. "It's a really weird situation," he said. "I see almost no way that you can do that without it being at least a reporting violation, quite likely a criminal violation of the contribution limits. You might say from a campaign finance angle that the LLC was essentially operating as an unregistered committee."
Chakrabarti declined to comment on the FEC complaint or provide details about his companies’ financial activities. Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, declined to comment.
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 "t***sition 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 summarize or 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."
Mar 4, 2019 21:33:10 #
Mar 4, 2019 21:37:42 #
Mar 4, 2019 21:50:31 #
Mar 4, 2019 22:16:53 #
Mar 4, 2019 22:46:36 #
Mar 5, 2019 00:30:47 #
Angmo wrote:
Occasional Cortex now has a resume enhancer under her training bra. Felony time.
Sexist.
Mar 5, 2019 00:31:05 #
Los-Angeles-Shooter wrote:
AOC wins the trifecta: bigoted, i***tic, and crooked.
You're just jealous.
Mar 5, 2019 00:38:42 #
Mar 5, 2019 00:49:41 #
Well, that chart is totally wrong. My stock investments prove it. The Obama economy was a rocking path to wealth. The Trump economy is a flatline in comparison.
Mar 5, 2019 00:50:24 #
jcboy3 wrote:
Well, that chart is totally wrong. My stock investments prove it. The Obama economy was a rocking path to wealth. The Trump economy is a flatline in comparison.
You need help. Mine doubled. But then I know what I’m doing.
Other than that, you’ve totally insulted yourself with your statement.
Too bad you won’t get your own insult against yourself. You really kicked your ass, bro!!!!
Lol
Mar 5, 2019 00:53:54 #
Angmo wrote:
You need help. Mine doubled. But then I know what I’m doing.
Other than that, you’ve totally insulted yourself with your statement.
Too bad you won’t get your own insult against yourself. You really kicked your ass, bro!!!!
Lol
Other than that, you’ve totally insulted yourself with your statement.
Too bad you won’t get your own insult against yourself. You really kicked your ass, bro!!!!
Lol
You aren't paying attention:
https://www.macrotrends.net/2488/sp500-10-year-daily-chart
Mar 5, 2019 00:56:35 #
jcboy3 wrote:
Oh, you mean that correction after then Dems stole the House???
Lololololololol.
You just keep kicking your ass. Lol
Mar 5, 2019 01:03:45 #
Angmo wrote:
Oh, you mean that correction after then Dems stole the House???
Lololololololol.
You just keep kicking your ass. Lol
Lololololololol.
You just keep kicking your ass. Lol
To coin a phrase, "jibba jabba".
Keep dreaming. I've got a real life with real investments. Trump is a hack.
Mar 5, 2019 04:03:44 #
LWW
Loc: Banana Republic of America
jcboy3 wrote:
To coin a phrase, "jibba jabba".
Keep dreaming. I've got a real life with real investments. Trump is a hack.
Keep dreaming. I've got a real life with real investments. Trump is a hack.
Comic books and baseball cards haven’t fared well.
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