Saikat Chakrabarti, the chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, just resigned. As her top aide, he was also under investigation for campaign finance violations, including the creation of two PACs that seemed to be operating illegally.
He is being accused of setting up two companies, where roughly $1 million was funneled, in order to profit and possibly skirt campaign disclosure requirements.
This points to one absurdity of the current system: Hefty financial transfers from PACs to private LLCs are not necessarily improper, and many shadowy political operatives skip the PACs completely to run political money through LLCs to eliminate the voters’ right to know what special interest is paying for the nasty attack ads they run.
In this case, the original complaint was filed with the FEC in March by the conservative National Legal and Policy Center based in Virginia. It said that Chakrabarti appeared to have “orchestrated an extensive off-the-books operation to make hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenditures in support of multiple candidates for federal office.” The complaint said that the purpose of the “extensive” scheme was evidently to avoid detailed reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.
With so much secret money running through the political-industrial complex that dominates D.C., many can be enticed to trade their constituents’ interests for self-enrichment or power.
In some cases, the actual elected official could be enticed by a high paying job after supporting the future employer’s budgeting or legislative request. In other cases, people around the candidate seek to benefit by using the candidate’s fame.
One report suggested that President Trump was furious with longtime Citizens United President David Bossie who raised almost $20 million under the appearance of helping Trump. Bossie was caught spending only half a million of the total on politics in a practice commonly referred to as running a ScamPAC.
In this case, Chakrabarti ran AOC’s historic congressional campaign and was the architect of the Green New Deal. Some associated with a huge win like this use their newfound fame to make money, while others choose to instead stay with their candidate to push policy. It appears the tech millionaire Chakrabarti tried to have his cake and eat it too, agreeing to a far less than usual salary for a chief of staff at $80,000. But this allowed him to avoid requirements to disclose outside income.
Immediately following the 2016 presidential election, a study warned of the culture of self-enrichment among the political class. As President Harry S. Truman famously put it, “You can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook.” The political-industrial complex provides lobbyists, donors, politicians, and even their staffers the opportunity to make millions of dollars off a free-for-all corrupt system.
It’s unclear where this investigation will lead and how it will affect the freshman congresswoman moving forward. Corbin Trent, AOC’s communications director, is also departing from her Hill office in order to lead the reelection effort in her home district.
During July, Trump defended Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Ocasio-Cortez and other freshman Congress members accused her of being racist. They claimed that she singled them out because they are all women of color. The theatrics and daily drama on the Hill between the Democrats as well as between Democrats and Trump are really a distraction to America when corruption is a much bigger issue for voters across the nation, according to a recent poll.
As for AOC herself, no matter how strong conservatives will disagree with her on a host of issues, the fact that she and Sen. Ted Cruz were willing to explore ways to eliminate SuperPACs shows there is hope for “outsiders” from opposite sides of the political spectrum to take on the political-industrial complex.
AOCs shocking victory in a Democratic primary mirrored Dave Brat’s stunning upset of Eric Cantor in 2014.
The distraction of people cashing in on an elected official’s accomplishment in an unethical or even illegal way can hurt the actual official’s attempts to reform the system.
In America, government can only function if elected officials and their staffers view their jobs as public servants. We need to drastically change the rules in Washington in order to safeguard our republic.
Simple steps to right the ship include requiring candidates to report if any family member is receiving at least $100,000 from a foreign entity, a practice used by China to influence the U.S. We should also extend the revolving door to at least five years to lessen the temptation to secure extra state funds for would-be future employers. Finally, breaking up the absurd system that allows big money interests to put unlimited piles of secret funds into LLCs to attack any candidate who votes his or her conscience would be very effective.
If we take these three steps, candidates will spend much more time focusing on legislating and interacting with their own constituents.
John Pudner is the executive director of TakeBack.org
