February 16, 2019

The Latest Attempt to Take Down AOC Ended Just as Spectacularly As You’d Expect

Don’t they have something better to do?

Tom Williams/AP

Yet another conservative attempt to take down Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has backfired.

The latest allegation is that Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) must have hired her partner Riley Roberts because he has a House of Representatives email address. Ocasio-Cortez quickly responded that Roberts is not on her staff and only has the email address so he can see her Google Calendar.

On Friday morning, a viral tweet from Luke Thompson, the co-host of a podcast about the Constitution, claimed that Roberts was “drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime.” Charlie Kirk, the president of the right-wing group Turning Point USA, followed up by saying there was “strong evidence” Ocasio-Cortez was violating Congressional ethics rules. Fox News ominously claimed that Ocasio-Cortez was “facing ethics questions.”

A spokesperson for the House’s Office of the Chief Administrative Officer told the Washington Post,  “From time to time, at the request of members, spouses and partners are provided House email accounts for the purposes of viewing the member’s calendar.”

“Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s partner, Mr. Roberts, has no official position, paid or otherwise, with her congressional office,” Saikat Chakrabarti, her chief of staff, told the Post, “Members of Congress have very tightly scheduled calendars that their family members and partners are allowed to access to make personal plans around official schedules.”

Previous attempts to embarrass Ocasio-Cortez by sharing a video of her dancing in college or a fake “nude” selfie have ended just as poorly.

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FACT:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and the wealthy wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2019 demands.

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