The campaign of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her former chief of staff were found to have failed to report roughly $1 million in expenses.
The Federal Election Commission released filings on Thursday from a two-year investigation surrounding allegations that Ocasio-Cortez's former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, funneled $1 million through two political action committees, Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, according to the New York Post. Despite the findings, the FEC voted to dismiss a complaint lodged against Ocasio-Cortez by the National Legal and Policy Center in March 2019.
"The FEC has gone after a whole host of people whose violations are dwarfed by the scale of this scheme," Paul Kamenar, the attorney for the NLPC, said in a statement to the outlet. "It appears to be not prosecutorial discretion, but prosecutorial favoritism."
The NLPC's complaint claims that Chakrabarti funneled the money through two political action committees into two organizations, according to the outlet. The money transferred might have been in violation of the $5,000 limit for donations to federal candidates, according to the complaint.
The investigation from the FEC found that the two PACs "did not properly disclose the purpose of the disbursements" to the shell companies, according to the outlet.
In response to the findings, the NLPC filed a lawsuit against the federal election integrity organization for failing to provide a reason for dismissing its complaint, according to the outlet.
"It was highly irregular for the FEC to release its statement of reasons after the deadline for us to file suit," Tom Anderson, the director for the NLPC's Government Integrity Project, told the outlet.
The FEC's findings come more than 30 days after the agency voted to dismiss the complaint against Ocasio-Cortez, according to the outlet.
AOC's campaign and ex-chief of staff failed to disclose $1 million in expenses | Washington Examiner
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