FEC Complaint For “Money Laundering” Filed Against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez!

While the whole thing is very interesting to read, here's the allegation of money laundering.

See for yourself below and view full thing on Scribd here:

Here are more details, from the NY Post:

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign may have illegally paid her boyfriend through a political action committee during her congressional race, a Republican group alleges in a new complaint with the FEC.

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation alleged in the complaint that Brand New Congress PAC paid Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, for marketing services after the PAC was hired by her campaign.

Using the third-party PAC to pay her boyfriend may have violated campaign-finance laws, a lawyer for the Coolidge Reagan Foundation told The Post.

“It is totally legal, as a candidate, to hire family members, people you know to work for you. But they didn’t do that,” said Attorney Dan Backer.

“Instead of paying him directly, they paid him through an intermediary — in order to obscure the fact that they paid him. The FEC should investigate and find out if that’s the case. That’s the allegation,” Backer added.

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation is seeking the FEC to investigate if the campaign violated finance laws that state campaign contributions “shall not be converted by any person to personal use.”

But the PAC that hired Roberts told Fox News, who first reported the story, that all the payments were legally sound.

“[Roberts] is a professional digital marketing and growth consultant who specializes in social media presence and subscriber engagement,” a spokeswoman for Brand New Congress PAC told Fox.

“He was hired through a two-month trial period, beginning on August 3, 2017, and worked through the end of September 2017,” the spokeswoman added. “Services to the Brand New Congress PAC consisted of advertising strategies for potential growth, developing metrics, and aiding in execution of strategy to increase brand awareness for the PAC as a whole.”

And from Fox News:

A Republican group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday alleging that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's campaign may have illegally funneled thousands of dollars through an allied PAC to boyfriend Riley Roberts.

Members of the Washington, D.C.-based Coolidge Reagan Foundation allege in their complaint that when the Brand New Congress PAC (BNC) -- a political arm of Brand New Congress LLC, a company that was hired by Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to run and support her campaign -- paid Roberts for marketing services, it potentially ran afoul of campaign finance law.

“It’s not illegal for [Ocasio-Cortez] to pay her boyfriend, but it appears that they created some sort of scheme to avoid claiming the money [as a campaign expense],” Dan Backer, a D.C.-based attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of the foundation, told Fox News. “What exactly did he do for that money?”

It was first reported last week 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.”

Officials with BNC claimed in a previous statement, however, that everything was on the up and up regarding payments.

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“[Roberts] is a professional digital marketing and growth consultant who specializes in social media presence and subscriber engagement,” said BNC’s Communications Director Zeynab Day, adding that his hiring was based “on his experience managing successful advertising and social media campaigns.”

“He was hired through a 2 month trial period, beginning on August 3, 2017, and worked through the end of September 2017,” she added. “Services to the Brand New Congress PAC consisted of advertising strategies for potential growth, developing metrics, and aiding in execution of strategy to increase brand awareness for the PAC as a whole.”

Wednesday's complaint comes after a blog post on Medium by political consultant Luke Thompson, who first flagged the payments to Roberts.

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