Remember Luke Thompson? He’s the guy we told you about last week whose account was locked by Twitter after he started asking questions about why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend has an official House email account.
The MSM blew Thompson off, as did AOC’s Chief of Staff, Saikat Chakr. But Thompson, not satisfied with the excuses offered up by AOC’s office, kept digging and found that a liberal Super PAC paid AOC’s boyfriend $6000 during the campaign at a time when the campaign was deeply in debt. Oh, and the payments are possibly illegal.
Luke doing the work other journalists won’t.
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) February 20, 2019
THREAD ==>
A rich guy used a PAC to pay @AOC's boyfriend $6,000 when her campaign was running out of money. After AOC won, she gave that rich guy a job in her office. Follow me on a journey.https://t.co/KSQqq3xKRY
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
The rich guy in the above tweet is Saikat Chakrabarti:
Last week, @AOC and her Chief of Staff @saikatc (the rich guy in question) freaked out on me when I pointed out it looked like she'd hired her boyfriend. I did some digging in the FEC. Turns out Saikat has "hired" her boyfriend, before…just not to do any actual work.
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Chakrabarti reportedly owns a consulting company called, Brand New Congress LLC, which runs parallel to the Brand New Congress Super PAC. The money trail here is that AOC paid the consulting company for services while the Super PAC paid her boyfriend, Riley Roberts:
.@AOC paid Brand New Congress LLC, which @saikatc owns, for strategic consulting. @BrandNew535, the PAC Saikat ran in parallel to his LLC, turned around and paid Riley Roberts – the boyfriend – the same amount as its sole "marketing consultant". How swampy.
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Payment details here:
The payments to Roberts are the largest payments made by @BrandNew535 to any person or group other than Brand New Congress LLC. Oh, and Roberts doesn't work in marketing. pic.twitter.com/XN8AYl0l7J
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
The timing of the payments is suspicious as well:
Plus, the timing looks bad.
.@BrandNew535 paid Riley Roberts $3,000 on August 9th, 2017.@AOC's campaign paid Brand New Congress LLC $6,191.32 on August 27th.
A month later @BrandNew535 then paid Riley Roberts another $3,000. pic.twitter.com/Oym09gLGZy
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Roberts also has two addresses listed. Arizona for the money from the Super PAC, New York for the in-kind contributions on the FEC report:
Roberts lists his residence as Arizona, where he's from, for the purposes of the disbursement, but for the in-kind work in 2018 and his cash donations to @AOC's campaign, he lists New York. Looks like a sad attempt to be sneaky. pic.twitter.com/lNAzmm4svP
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
The payments to Roberts came at a time when AOC’s campaign was deeply in debt:
When @BrandNew535 decided to pay six grand to Roberts, AOC's campaign was $24,000 in the hole, having raised only about $3,000. By the end of 2017, she'd raised just over $8,000 but spent about $37,250. That's a lot of money on somebody's credit card. pic.twitter.com/0vdioqSigu
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
So, when did Chakrabarti leave the Super PAC? Good question:
Now @saikatc says he left @BrandNew535 sometime in August of 2017. But @justicedems, which he continued running, and which remains on his profile, shared an address with @AOC's campaign. It appears he still owns Brand New Congress LLC. pic.twitter.com/T0MS7ab80x
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
All of this could be illegal:
.@saikatc funneling money to Roberts – who @AOC says is her spouse – is unethical and maybe illegal. And AOC didn't disclose this income, and didn't claim Roberts as a spouse, in her candidate financial disclosures.
2017: https://t.co/6ZgNoNWGmz
2018: https://t.co/wr1Dr1uAhP— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Even if it’s not illegal, it does raise ethical issues:
Now, maybe he wasn't her spouse then, but they were living together per her Vogue profile, so paying the money is still a massive ethical problem.https://t.co/SEqi5fEAe5 pic.twitter.com/FRduzForEM
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Over to you, firefighters!
So, we get an under the table PAC payments to your boyfriend from a wealthy benefactor, who you then hire? Add that to your next lightening round of questions about HR1 @AOC.https://t.co/KSQqq3xKRY
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 20, 2019
Editor’s note: We cleaned up an editing error in the 2nd paragraph.
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Related:
ICYMI ==> After it was noticed that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend has a .gov email, WaPo got VERY curious (about conservatives) https://t.co/rn3Kukk2lu
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 16, 2019
WaPo reporter still trying to get to the bottom of why the ‘AOC’s boyfriend’s .gov email’ story won’t die in darkness https://t.co/ZQNzi3ZZjy
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 16, 2019
Wait, WAAAT?! Blue-check journo chick blames ‘horny Conservatives’ for AOC being outed over shady situation with boyfriend https://t.co/eo9l02F1Z5
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 15, 2019
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