According to a congressional monitor, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have broken House rules when she accepted gifts concerning her attendance at a major fashion event in 2021.
According to a statement released by the office on Thursday, the Office of Congressional Ethics advised the House ethics committee to keep looking into a claim against the New York Democrat “because there is substantial reason to believe that she accepted impermissible gifts” related to the Met Gala.
Ocasio-Cortez attended one of the major fashion industry events in 2021 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City while wearing a Brother Vellies white dress with the words “Tax the Rich” emblazoned in bold red letters on the back.
According to a report from the Office of House Ethics, Ocasio-Cortez received the attire, a handbag, shoes, and jewelry for the occasion. Also, she received transportation assistance, hair and makeup services, and the use of a hotel room for the event.
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According to the analysis, Ocasio-Cortez paid for the items—including the dress’ rental cost—only after the watchdog office began its investigation. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez “it appears that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez may not have paid for several thousands of dollars’ worth of goods and services provided to her.” according to investigators if the office hadn’t launched the investigation.
Ocasio-Cortez admitted to investigators that she was unaware of the specifics of the payments and that she had left handling the situation to a campaign staff member. Also, she informed the staff that “there was a ball that was dropped,” describing the incident as “deeply regrettable.”
According to a statement released by the lawmaker’s office on Thursday, none of the findings constitute an ethics violation because the congresswoman has always “understood that she had to pay for these expenses from her funds.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez may have violated House rules with gifts from Met Gala, watchdog says
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez may have violated House rules with gifts from Met Gala, watchdog says https://t.co/1dtNgxLE1D
— Post Politics (@postpolitics) March 2, 2023
The problem has been that those expenses have not yet been refunded, which Ocasio-Cortez described in the statement as “unacceptable” delays. And she has taken many measures to ensure that anything similar won’t occur again.
At the celebrity-studded fundraiser that year, Ocasio-Cortez garnered media attention in the Brother Vellies outfit. According to the ethics office’s report, she did not pay a rental fee for the dress, which also stated that Brother Vellies, designer Aurora James, and Janna Pea of the public relations agency BerlinRosen did not cooperate with the investigation by refusing to give investigators the information they requested. The House Committee on Ethics should summon them, according to the report.
