It's Beginning to Look Like AOC Didn't Just Violate Ethics Rules - She Stiffed Small Business Owners to Finance Her Big Night Out
A congressional ethics investigation into New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to reveal worse on a weekly basis as the investigation looks into her actions ahead of the 2021 Met Gala at which she sported her infamous “tax the rich” emblazoned dress.
The House Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has already found that AOC likely violated federal law with her Met soiree, the question now seems to be just how badly she broke the rules. The investigation was started after an ethics violation complaint was filed not long after the event.
The New York Democrat was blasted in Sept. of 2021 for wearing a white dress with the words “tax the rich” painted in red lettering across her backside.
The epitome of stupidity.#AOC wearing a several thousand dollar dress with “tax the rich” on it at a gala that glorifies the extravagant elite #MetGala pic.twitter.com/f2ATuFatWo
— Lidia Curanaj (@LidiaNews) September 14, 2021
At that time, the annual gala cost $35,000 per ticket or a fee of $250,000 for a table, the Washington Examiner reported at the time. It was quite a lavish cost making it seem an unlikely place to find a self-proclaimed socialist.
But now that Republicans are bringing some sanity and accounting back to Congress, AOC’s night out on the town is finally seeing some scrutiny.
The House Ethics Committee announced in December that it was going to begin looking into AOC’s actions and the OCE confirmed on Thursday that it had recommended an investigation into the Met Gala appearance.
In a report dated June 17, 2022, the office said that there was “substantial reason to believe that she accepted impermissible gifts associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021.”
AOC reportedly stiffed vendors, wheedled tickets to the event in shady trading on her office, and accepted “gifts” from companies that employ lobbyists — the latter of which is against House rules.
Indeed, AOC’s own staffers warned her that it was against the rules — something she seems to do frequently — for her to accept the tickets she was getting from Vogue magazine’s Anna Wintour, who registered AOC as a “guest” of her magazine.
According to the New York Post, AOC’s own anti-corruption lawyer warned her staffers that “the Congresswoman could accept an invitation from [the Met], but not [italics his] from Vogue … Since Advance Publications is a registered lobbyist, we’ll need to be extra careful!”
Clearly, AOC did not care to even be remotely “careful.” She took the tickets and went anyway.
The free (and illegal) tickets are bad enough. But AOC also spent more than a year refusing to pay all the people who did her hair, got her a pair of ritzy shoes, chauffeured her around, and made her custom dress. Worse, she berated the vendors until they offered steep discounts on these items and services that she only finally paid when the House ethics investigation was started.
The Post noted that she waited six months to pay her $344.85 makeup artist’s bill, paid her $477.73 hair stylist bill, her $586.84 limousine fee, another car service fee of $571.59, and her $4,602.92 hotel bill for months after the gala.
“The only person who got paid the full value of her services was the manicurist — because, as AOC’s staffer told investigators, ‘the woman there said she … would need to be paid by cash’ … immediately,” the Post added.
AOC seems to have proven that the best way to prove you are a good socialist is to stiff the little people who provided you with their services for your ritzy, high society celebrations.
But, all joking aside, this is how a person who claims to represent the little people treats the same people whom she claims to champion.
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