Conservative group alleges PACs established by Ocasio-Cortez aide failed to disclose spending

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) office is under scrutiny after a complaint filed with the Federal Election Committee (FEC) alleged groups with ties to her chief of staff failed to properly disclose payments.

The freshman congresswoman denied to Fox News on Tuesday that any violation took place after the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based conservative watchdog group, filed a complaint with the FEC a day earlier alleging Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, "orchestrated an extensive operation to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign spending during the 2018 campaign."

Asked if the complaint shows she was connected to "dark money" during the campaign, Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News, “No, no.” She has fervently spoken out against dark money in politics.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that documents show Ocasio-Cortez's campaign paid a corporation owned by Chakrabarti almost $19,000 in 2017, a year before he worked as a volunteer on the campaign.

The Post reported that the same corporation, Brand New Congress LLC, received roughly $1 million in 2016 and 2017 from two political action committees Chakrabarti helped create in an effort to elect progressive candidates: Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress.

The arrangement obscured who ultimately profited from the payments, the Post reported, prompting allegations of hypocrisy and intense attention from conservative commentators.

Conservative outlets like Breitbart and the Washington Examiner first reported on the payments.

Chakrabarti defended the setup of the PACs in a tweet earlier this week, saying he explained in a 2016 interview how the operation's involvement with Brand New Congress worked.