Ocasio-Cortez, chief of staff illegally moved $885K in campaign contributions 'off the books,' FEC complaint alleges

I'm Baaack.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Saikat Chakrabarti, the progressive firebrand's multimillionaire chief of staff, apparently violated campaign finance law by funneling nearly $1 million in contributions from political action committees Chakrabarti established to private companies that he also controlled, according to an explosive complaint filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and obtained by Fox News.
Amid the allegations, a former FEC commissioner late Monday suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ocasio-Cortez and her team could be facing major fines and potentially even jail time if they were knowingly and willfully violating the law by hiding their control of the Justice Democrats political action committee (PAC). Such an arrangement could have allowed Ocasio-Cortez's campaign to receive donations in excess of the normal limit, by pooling contributions to both the PAC and the campaign itself.
The FEC complaint asserts that Chakrabarti established two PACs, the Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats PAC, and then systematically transfered more than $885,000 in contributions received by those PACs to the Brand New Campaign LLC and the Brand New Congress LLC -- companies that, unlike PACs, are exempt from reporting all of their significant expenditures. The PACs claimed the payments were for "strategic consulting."
Although large financial transfers from PACs to LLCs are not necessarily improper, the complaint argues that the goal of the "extensive" scheme was seemingly to illegally dodge detailed legal reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which are designed to track campaign expenditures.
"It appears 'strategic consulting' was a mischaracterization of a wide range of activities that should have been reported individually," the complaint states.

FILE - In this Wednesday June 27, 2018, file photo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, the winner of New York's Democratic Congressional primary, greets supporters following her victory, along with Saikat Chakrabarti, founder of Justice Democrats and senior adviser for her campaign. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

The complaint was drafted by the conservative, Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti, according to the NLPC's complaint, appeared to have "orchestrated an extensive off-the-books operation to make hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenditures in support of multiple candidates for federal office."
The funds, the NLPC writes, were likely spent on campaign events for Ocasio-Cortez and other far-left Democratic candidates favored by Chakrabarti, who made his fortune in Silicon Valley and previously worked on Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. But no precise accounting for the expenses is available, and the complaint asks the FEC to conduct an investigation into the matter immediately.
"These are not minor or technical violations," Tom Anderson, director of NLPC’s Government Integrity Project, said in a statement. "We are talking about real money here. In all my years of studying FEC reports, I’ve never seen a more ambitious operation to circumvent reporting requirements. Representative 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.”
Added Anderson: “They believe their cause is so great that they don’t have to play by the rules. They believe that they are above campaign finance law."
Brand New Congress LLC does not appear to be registered as an LLC in any state, according to the complaint, but is a registered 527 tax-exempt organization. Fox News confirmed that Brand New Campaign LLC is a registered Delaware corporation, but Brand New Congress LLC is not.
Ocasio-Cortez's office did not return a request for comment.
In announcing the complaint the NLPC pointed to a 2016 interview on MSNBC, in which the 33-year-old Chakrabarti told anchor Rachel Maddow that he wanted to employ a "single, unified presidential-style campaign" model to "galvanize" voters nationally to elect progressives to Congress, while helping candidates avoid the stress of fundraising and managing their own campaigns.
Other legal experts also sounded the alarm on Monday, saying Chakrabarti's unusual arrangement raised serious unanswered questions.
Former FEC Associate General Counsel for Policy Adav Noti, who currently directs the Campaign Legal Center, told Fox News that it was a "total mystery" to him why Chakrabarti had established an LLC seemingly to take money from the PAC, rather than simply create a "normal venture," like a consulting business, to provide services for candidates on the books.
"Certainly, it's not permissible to use an LLC or any other kind of intermediary to conceal the recipient or purpose of a PAC's spending," Noti said. "The law requires the PAC to report who it disperses money to. You can't try to evade that by routing it through an LLC or corporation or anyone else."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens to questioning of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, at the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Noti added: "What's so weird about this situation is that the PAC that dispersed so much of its money to one entity that was so clearly affiliated with the PAC. Usually, that's a sign that it's what's come to be known as a 'scam PAC' -- one that's operated for the finanical benefit of its operators, rather than one designed to engage in political activity."
At the same time, Noti said, Chakrabarti had provided "long descriptions of why they structured it the way they did -- which is not something a scam PAC would do," because it only draws attention to the unusual setup. And Noti cautioned that there is a tendency for some groups to try to gain attention by invoking Ocasio-Cortez.
"But on the other hand," Noti added, Ocasio-Cortez's "explanations don't make a lot of sense on their face. I read their explanation multiple times, and I still don't understand. If you want to start a business to provide services to campaigns -- many of those are organized as LLC's, and you sell your services."

"I read their explanation multiple times, and I still don't understand."
— Former FEC Associate General Counsel Adav Noti

Instead, Chaktrabarti "started a PAC, which has legal obligations to report all of is incoming and outgoing money, and then used the PAC to disperse its funds to the LLC," Noti said.
Added former FEC chairman Bradley A. Smith, in an interview with The Washington Examiner: "It's a really weird situation. I see almost no way that you can do that without it being at least a reporting violation, quite likely a violation of the contribution limits. You might say from a campaign finance angle that the LLC was essentially operating as an unregistered committee."
Last week, Anderson also raised concerns over Ocasio-Cortez's decision to announce, with much fanfare, that she would offer a minimum salary of $52,000 to her staffers, and a maximum salary of $80,000 -- far below the typical six-figure highs hit by chiefs of staff and other high-level congressional workers.
Government watchdogs pointed out that federal law requires congressional workers making more than $126,000 a year -- which would ordinarily include Chakrabarti -- to file detailed forms outlining all of their outside income, including investments and gifts.
“Purposefully underpaying staffers in order to avoid transparency is an old trick some of the most corrupt members of Congress have used time and again,” Anderson said.
Speaking to the New York Post, Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent dismissed the FEC complaint, saying the campaign had consulted an elections lawyer and that all money was properly accounted for.
“It was payment for services. ... We believe that complaint is politically motivated, basically intended to create a political story,” Trent told the Post.
Noti told Fox News that Trent's explanation could be plausible -- and if so, it might help Ocasio-Cortez's team avoid civil fraud lawsuits.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during a march organised by the Women's March Alliance in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs - RC1647E36CA0

"One possibility -- a strong possibility, based on the description they put out, is they just got really bad legal advice that somehow said they had to to do this," Noti said. "But regardless, when they decided to use the PAC form, which they did, they subjected themselves to all the legal requirements that come with that."
Election laws are complicated, Noti added, and there have been some erroneous recent reports related to Ocasio-Cortez's campaign. For example, FEC filings reviewed by Fox News show that Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign paid the Justice Democrats PAC more than $35,000 from 2017 to 2018 for "web services," “strategic consulting,” and "campaign services."
While some outlets have incorrectly reported that federal rules generally prohibit PACs from providing more than $5,000 in services to campaigns, Noti told Fox News that the payments were likely proper so long as they were for the fair market value of the services rendered.
In terms of possible penalties, Noti said that Ocasio-Cortez's campaign could be facing FEC fines if it followed bad legal advice and made reporting errors. But civil or even criminal fraud statutes, as opposed to campaign finance laws, would potentially kick in if it were determined that Chakrabarti had intentionally tried to hide the money to use for illicit expenses.
Meanwhile, former FEC commissioner Brad Smith told the Daily Caller News Foundation's investigative unit that, because Ocasio-Cortez may have held legal control of the Justice Democrats PAC while the PAC was supporting her campaign, the two committees were likely acting as affiliated committees -- and therefore share an individual contribution limit of $2,700 that might have been improperly and repeatedly exceeded.
The Daily Caller News Foundation's review of archived copies of the Justice Democrats PAC's website and relevant campaign documents indicated that Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti "obtained majority control of Justice Democrats PAC in December 2017" -- and yet allegedly failed to disclose afterwards to the FEC the fact that the PAC was supporting her candidacy.
“If this were determined to be knowing and willful, they could be facing jail time," Smith said. "Even if it’s not knowing and willful, it would be a clear civil violation of the act, which would require disgorgement of the contributions and civil penalties. I think they’ve got some real issues here.”
Added former Republican FEC commissioner Hans von Spakovsky: “If the facts as alleged are true, and a candidate had control over a PAC that was working to get that candidate elected, then that candidate is potentially in very big trouble and may have engaged in multiple violations of federal campaign finance law, including receiving excessive contributions."
Monday's FEC complaint comes on the heels of a separate complaint by the Washington, D.C.-based Coolidge Reagan Foundation, which alleged last week that the Brand New Congress PAC may have illegally funneled thousands of dollars to Ocasio-Cortez's live-in boyfriend, Riley Roberts.
It was first reported late last month that the Brand New Congress PAC paid Roberts during the early days of the Ocasio-Cortez campaign. According to FEC records, the PAC made two payments to Roberts – one in August 2017 and one in September 2017 – both for $3,000.
The FEC complaint specifically cites the use of "intermediaries" to make the payments, "the vague and amorphous nature of the services Riley ostensibly provided," the relatively small amount of money raised by the campaign at that stage and "the romantic relationship between Ocasio-Cortez and Riley" in asserting the transactions might violate campaign finance law.
The Coolidge Reagan Foundation -- a 501(c)(3) -- is requesting that the FEC look into the payments for potential violations on relevant campaign finance laws that state that campaign contributions “shall not be converted by any person to personal use” and that “an authorized committee must report the name and address of each person who has received any disbursement not disclosed.”
Fox News' Perry Chiaramonte contributed to this report.

Democrat Controlled House Cartoons

Jon Stewart sticks to praise of Trump administration's handling of 9/11 victims’ program

Jon Stewart, a reliably harsh critic of the president, doubled down this weekend on his praise of the Trump administration’s handling of a program which provides funds to 9/11 responders and their families.
“The Trump Justice Department is doing a good job running the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund,” Stewart told The New York Daily News Sunday.
The comments came shortly after Trump on Sunday retweeted a post of Stewart praising the Justice Department earlier this week.
In a testimony to Congress on Monday, the former "Daily Show" host said the claims of the 9/11 program “are moving through faster, and the awards are coming through.”
The compensation fund for victims of 9/11 is running out of money and will cut future payments by 50 to 70 percent, officials said last month. September 11th Victim Compensation Fund special master Rupa Bhattacharyya said fund officials estimate it would take another $5 billion to pay pending claims and the claims that officials anticipate will be submitted before the fund's December 2020 deadline.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

House prepares to expand obstruction probe

Democrat New York

WASHINGTON — Declaring it’s “very clear” President Donald Trump obstructed justice, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says the panel is requesting documents Monday from more than 60 people from Trump’s administration, family and business as part of a rapidly expanding Russia investigation.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the House Judiciary Committee wants to review documents from the Justice Department, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg. Former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn also are likely targets, he said.

“We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice,” Nadler said. “We will do everything we can to get that evidence.”
Asked if he believed Trump obstructed justice, Nadler said, “Yes, I do.”
Nadler isn’t calling the inquiry an impeachment investigation but said House Democrats, now in the majority, are simply doing “our job to protect the rule of law” after Republicans during the first two years of Trump’s term were “shielding the president from any proper accountability.”
“We’re far from making decisions” about impeachment, he said.
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump blasted anew the Russia investigation, calling it a partisan probe unfairly aimed at discrediting his win in the 2016 presidential election. “I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election!” he wrote.
Nadler’s comments follow a bad political week for Trump. He emerged empty-handed from a high-profile summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un on denuclearization and Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in three days of congressional testimony, publicly characterized the president as a “con man” and “cheat.”
Newly empowered House Democrats are flexing their strength with blossoming investigations. A half-dozen House committees are now probing alleged coordination between Trump associates and Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election, Trump’s tax returns and possible conflicts of interest involving the Trump family business and policy-making. The House oversight committee, for instance, has set a Monday deadline for the White House to turn over documents related to security clearances after The New York Times reported that the president ordered officials to grant his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s clearance over the objections of national security officials.
Nadler’s added lines of inquiry also come as special counsel Robert Mueller is believed to be wrapping up his work into possible questions of Trump campaign collusion and obstruction in the Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. In his testimony, Cohen acknowledged he did not witness or know directly of collusion between Trump aides and Russia but had his “suspicions.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Sunday accused House Democrats of prejudging Trump as part of a query based purely on partisan politics.
“I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election,” McCarthy said. “Listen to exactly what he said. He talks about impeachment before he even became chairman and then he says, ‘you’ve got to persuade people to get there.’ There’s nothing that the president did wrong.”
“Show me where the president did anything to be impeached...Nadler is setting the framework now that the Democrats are not to believe the Mueller report,” he said.
Nadler said Sunday his committee will seek to review the Mueller report but stressed the investigation “goes far beyond collusion.”
He pointed to what he considered several instances of obstruction of justice by the president, including the “1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a ‘witch hunt’” as well Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey in 2017. According to Comey, Trump had encouraged the then-FBI director to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump has denied he told Comey to end the Flynn probe.
“It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice,” Nadler said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has kept calls for impeachment at bay by insisting that Mueller first must be allowed to finish his work, and present his findings publicly — though it’s unclear whether the White House will allow its full release.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the House intelligence committee, on Sunday also stressed that it’s too early to make judgments about impeachment.
“That is something that we will have to await Bob Mueller’s report and the underlying evidence to determine. We will also have to look at the whole body of improper and criminal actions by the president including those campaign finance crimes to determine whether they rise to the level of removal from office,” Schiff said.
Nadler and McCarthy spoke on ABC’s “This Week,” and Schiff appeared on CBS’ ”Face the Nation.”

What Sen. Paul’s decision to oppose Trump’s national emergency declaration means

The decision by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to vote in favor of blocking President Trump’s national emergency declaration for the border sets two things in motion on Capitol Hill:
1) It all but guarantees passage of the resolution overturning the declaration in the Senate.
2) It tees up President Trump’s first veto effort.
The Senate math is currently 53 Republicans and 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats.
All 47 Democrats are expected to vote in favor of the resolution, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVa. When asked last week how he'd vote, Manchin told Fox he’d vote yes. Manchin also cited the fact that he now held the seat of the legendary, late Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-WVa. Byrd was very protective of Congressional prerogatives. He was also a longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In other words, Byrd would probably take a dim view of Manchin if he voted otherwise.
Paul becomes the fourth Republican senator to support the effort to reject the national emergency. Others are Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ark. The first two face competitive re-election bids next year. Also keep an eye on Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and perhaps Mike Lee, R-Utah. Others could be in play as well. Pay particular attention to appropriators.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., has not set a firm date to deal with the national emergency disapproval bill on the floor. McConnell’s simply indicated the Senate would tackle the plan sometime before mid-March. Fox is told to keep an eye on March 14. Fox is also told the Senate would likely work out an arrangement to handle the issue in one day. The statute provides for up to three days of debate in the Senate.
A vote to overturn the resolution is yet another example of Senate GOP dissension when it comes to President Trump. In recent months, Republican senators broke with the President on a speedy withdrawal from Syria, how the administration dealt with Saudi Arabia following the death of Jamal Khashoggi and the cancellation of some Russian sanctions. Fox is told Mr. Trump was close to facing a “jailbreak” of GOP defections had the government not re-opened when it did following the shutdown.
If the Senate approves the package, the House and Senate are in alignment and the package goes to President Trump. This likely begs Mr. Trump’s first use of a veto.
President Obama vetoed his first piece of legislation after only 11 months on the job. President George W. Bush never vetoed a bill until he was in office for five-and-a-half years. President Bill Clinton didn’t use a veto until two-and-a-half years into his presidency.
Then comes the override attempt.
Successful veto overrides are rare. The gambit requires a two-thirds vote by both bodies of Congress. That’s 67 votes in the Senate, provided all 100 senators cast ballots. 427 House members cast ballots on the bill to block the national emergency last week. So the yardstick there is 285 yeas. 245 members voted in favor of the bill. Thus, the House fell 40 votes short.
So…
We are not expecting a successful override of a prospective veto of the national emergency. The math simply isn’t there.
It’s possible there could not be an attempt to override. The last unsuccessful attempt to override a veto came in January, 2016. President Obama vetoed a Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. The House voted 241-186, well short of the 285 yeas needed to override. The maneuver never went to the Senate since the override maneuver failed in the House.
Note that the vote to override is based on how many lawmakers ACTUALLY TAKE PART IN THE OVERRIDE ATTEMPT, not on how many members voted on the bill when it passed both bodies. So, determining a PRECISE number is impossible until the veto override vote is actually concluded.
The last successful veto override came in September, 2016. President Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The measure allowed families of 9/11 victims to sue those responsible or the attacks, including Saudi Arabia. The Senate voted 97-1 to override Mr. Obama (66 voted were needed). The House voted 348-77 with one lawmaker voting president. 284 yeas were needed for the override.
Prior to 2016, the last three successful overrides came on bills vetoed by President George. W. Bush. The House and Senate overrode the President’s veto on two versions of the Farm bill in May and June of 2008. The House and Senate then overrode Mr. Bush’s veto of a Medicare expansion plan in July, 2008.
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Trump blames Cohen hearing for possibly contributing to summit result

President Trump late Sunday tweeted that the call to have his former attorney Michael Cohen testify Wednesday in front of the House Oversight Committee may have contributed to the "walk" that resulted in his second nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump initially blamed North Korea for demanding too much in sanction relief that would only come with total denuclearization. Trump said last week simply that he “had to walk away” from the table.  Trump was asked about the Cohen hearing on Thursday while in Hanoi and said “having it [the hearing] in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing.”
Trump was apparently still considering where the summit went wrong on Sunday night and tweeted, “For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with north Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the “walk.” Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”
Cohen, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress about the Moscow real estate project and reports to prison in May for a three-year sentence, gave harsh testimony about Trump on several fronts Wednesday. He said Trump knew in advance that damaging emails about Democrat Hillary Clinton would be released during the 2016 campaign — a claim the president has denied — and accused Trump of lying during the 2016 campaign about the Moscow deal.
The hearing was seen as politically bruising for Trump who hoped to approach the meeting with Kim from a position of political strength.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho commented on the talks during an abruptly scheduled middle-of-the-night news conference after Trump was flying back the the U.S.
Ri said the North was also ready to offer in writing a permanent halt of the country’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and Washington had wasted an opportunity that “may not come again.”
North Korean state news agency KNCA's report Friday offered an upbeat takeaway of the meeting, saying both leaders walked away with a deeper commitment to forging ties between the two historically hostile nations.
The report said Kim was appreciative that Trump had made "active efforts towards results" and that he regarded the summit talks as "productive," Reuters reported.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for new talks between the U.S. and North Korea on Monday, reportedly saying that he believes there will eventually be an agreement.
Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report

Fake Lying Democrat Cartoons

Swarm of Lies.

Black Guns Matter founder says conservatives should reach out to potential allies in inner cities

The film “Black Panther” depicted conservative values, argues Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter. (Fox Business Network )

African-American guns rights activist Maj Toure says conservatives have to do a better job of appealing people in urban communities. His remarks came Thursday during an interview with National Rifle Association board member Willes Lee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington.
As the founder of Black Guns Matter -- a group that educates people in urban communities on their Second Amendment rights through firearms training and education -- Toure said inner-city Americans have been left out of the conversation when it comes to gun rights.
"The conservative room, has honestly, not done enough for urban America," Toure said. "It's just what it is. That doesn't mean that's where we stay. That means we have to create liaisons. When you say 'urban America' I mean a group of people you just named: Asians, Hispanics, blacks, Latin, white. ... We have to do more in that regard and put more boots on the ground. If not, we can – and will – lose."
Toure has proposed arming urban residents and giving them proper training in an effort to curb violence that exists in cities like Chicago despite strict gun laws. He’s touted New Hampshire in the past where a license is no longer needed to carry a concealed weapon.
“More so than just giving young urban people, of all races, firearms, giving them education about Second Amendment rights, giving them more education about conflict resolution and de-escalation tactics ‘cause that’s completely missing in urban areas like the city of Chicago,” Toure told FOX Business in 2017.
After last week's appearance at CPAC, Toure told Politico that he began advocating for gun rights in the inner cities after seeing friends locked up for avoidable gun possession charges. He wants to continue the legacy of Malcolm X, the black nationalist who was assassinated in 1965, who expressed softer views on race following his pilgrimage to the holy Muslim city of Mecca.
"We go where there's high violence, high crime, high gun control — high slave mentalities, to be perfectly honest — and inform urban America about their human right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to defend their life," Toure told the magazine.

"We go where there's high violence, high crime, high gun control — high slave mentalities, to be perfectly honest — and inform urban America about their human right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to defend their life."
— Maj Toure, founder, Black Guns Matter

The majority of America is conservative, but the way conservatives have vocalized their ideals has resulted in a “language barrier” with urban residents, conservative website Townhall reported.
"The conservative movement has failed where we have not created enough and supported enough urban liaisons. The Left has done an amazing job of convincing urban America that the conservative room is a Klan rally. They've done it," Toure said. "[They're] saying these things to say they don't trust you. People, right now, urban America, under a falsehood, does not trust you. What liaisons have you linked with that are already doing the work in urban America to highlight and spread our ideals of freedom?"
Aside from gun rights, Toure said his mission is to extend conservative values to urban communities. He argued the film “Black Panther” depicted conservative values in the fictional African nation of Wakanda.
“Think about it,” he said. “Border security; we’re working on our own thing; we don’t really bang with too many outsiders.”