Former Ocasio-Cortez Chief Of Staff Under Federal Investigation

Could the charmed life of the mouthy taco bar revolutionary have an expiration date and a future that is far less prestigious than a celebrity congresswoman?

There may be more to things than initially met the eye with the now-former chief of staff for Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is now under investigation by the feds.

Last week the political world was stunned when Saikat Chakrabarti, the controversial puppeteer behind the rise of the Lady Gaga of socialism suddenly resigned.

The official story of Chakrabarti’s departure was that he would be leaving to spend more time fine-tuning the socialist Trojan horse Green New Deal but he was loathed by many House Democrats.

Things started to go south for AOC’s Svengali after he compared House Dems who were didn’t side with the extremist “Squad” on border security funding as being the equivalent of Jim Crow-era Democrats and further inflamed tensions when he accused Rep. Sharice Davids of enabling racism.

The House Democrats’ official Twitter account took the unprecedented move to castigate Chakrabarti for his comments.

When he resigned on Friday, much speculation was that Nancy Pelosi had finally been able to get a choke chain on AOC who has been the bane of her existence since her election and the announcement was made after a meeting between the two.

But the plot has considerably thickened now that the feds are probing Chakrabarti for campaign finance issues including the funneling of PAC money into private companies.

Via The New York Post, “Feds probing AOC’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti after sudden resignation”:

The Feds are looking into possible campaign finance misdeeds by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff and lead rainmaker, who suddenly resigned Friday, federal sources told The Post.

The inquiry centers on two political action committees founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, the top aide who quit along with Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent,the sources said. Trent left to join the congresswoman’s 2020 re-election campaign.

The two PACs being probed, Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, were both set up by Chakrabarti to support progressive candidates across the country.

But they funneled more than $1 million in political donations into two private companies that Chakrabarti also incorporated and controlled, according to Federal Election Commission filings and a complaint filed in March with the regulatory agency.

In 2016 and 2017, the PACs raised about $3.3 million, mostly from small donors. A third of the cash was transferred to two private companies whose names are similar to one of the PACs — Brand New Congress LLC and Brand New Campaign LLC — federal campaign filings show.

The investigation into Chakribarti appears to be in relation to what the Washington Examiner described as “slush funds” in a article from a few months ago.

According to the Washington Examiner, “AOC’s chief of staff ran $1M slush fund by diverting campaign cash to his own companies”:

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 Election Commission on Monday.

The cash transfers from the PACs — overseen by Saikat Chakrabarti, the freshman socialist Democrat’s chief of staff — run counter to her pledges to increase transparency 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 skirted 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.”

The federal investigation could lead to increased scrutiny on the extreme-left Justice Democrats of which Chakrabarti was a co-founder and which promoted AOC as well as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tliaib in a scheme to put socialists into a position to challenge establishment Democrats.

How this all will ultimately affect the career of Ocasio-Cortez is unknown but it can’t be good for a drama queen who came out of nowhere to become arguably the most powerful Democrat in congress for a short period.