Our campaign finance laws are an absolute joke. The system was broken long before Citizens United opened the floodgates to unlimited and almost untraceable cash flowing into politics.
Look, the Dems are trying to get Trump on a BS campaign finance violation and when someone explains to me how paying someone with your own private money is illegal, I may understand these laws a bit.
Same goes for the PAC and super PAC nonsense all politicians use and coordinate with when they run.
That said, only a fool would be as egregious as AOC in violating these laws. The fact is we have the laws on the books and it seems AOC blatantly violated them.
If true, at least according to former FEC commissioners, AOC could face serious jail time.
From The Federalist Papers: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti could be facing prison time for a major campaign finance violation.
The two were running a PAC that supported her campaign in the 2018 election which is a major no no and now they could be forced to pay the consequences, The Daily Caller reported.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti obtained majority control of Justice Democrats PAC in December 2017, according to archived copies of the group’s website, and the two appear to retain their control of the group, according to corporate filings obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. If the Federal Election Commission (FEC) finds that the New York Democrat’s campaign operated in affiliation with the PAC, which had raised more than $1.8 million before her June 2018 primary, it would open them up to "massive reporting violations, probably at least some illegal contribution violations exceeding the lawful limits," former FEC commissioner Brad Smith said.
Ocasio-Cortez never disclosed to the FEC that she and Chakrabarti, who served as her campaign chair, controlled the PAC while it was simultaneously supporting her primary campaign, and former FEC commissioners say the arrangement could lead to multiple campaign finance violations. The group backed 12 Democrats during the 2018 midterms, but Ocasio-Cortez was the only one of those to win her general election.
Former FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky told The Daily Caller News Foundation "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."
And another former commissioner of the FEC, Brad Smith, said if "a complaint were filed, I would think it would trigger a serious investigation."
"At minimum, there’s a lot of smoke there, and if there are really only three board members and she and [Chakrabarti] are two of them, sure looks like you can see the blaze," Smith said. "I don’t really see any way out of it."
Smith also told the DCNF that both Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti could face serious fines and significant prison time if a complaint is filed.
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"It looks like the campaign and PAC are under common control and the PAC was funding campaign staff and activities as an alter-ego of the campaign committee, which would be a blatant abuse of the PAC rules," Charlie Spies, a Republican election attorney, said.
Justice Democrats stated on its website from December 2017 until two weeks after Ocasio-Cortez’s June 2018 primary victory that she and Chakrabarti held "legal control" of the PAC, and corporate filings obtained by TheDCNF show that the two still serve on the three-member board of Justice Democrats on paper.
Political committees are affiliated if they are "established, financed, maintained or controlled by … the same person or group of persons," federal election law states.
SOURCE
https://uslibertywire.com/ex-fec-commissioner-says-aoc-may-face-serious-prison-time-for-fec-violation/
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