Notwithstanding gift limitations for members of Congress, an agency is looking into AOC’s attendance at the Met Gala in a ‘Tax the Rich’ designer outfit.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of Congress, said “a ball was dropped.”
According to AOC’s attorney, “we are certain the Commission on Ethics will dismiss this complaint.”
Ethics investigators found “strong grounds to believe” that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broke ethics rules by attending the Met Gala in 2021.
The Office of House Ethics board has stated that they would be focusing their probe on the ‘impermissible gifts’ she may have gotten from a Squad member.
It’s been almost a year since several conservative organizations requested that the committee investigate the New York Democrat who wore a designer ‘Tax the Wealthy’ dress and complimentary $35,000 tickets to the Met Gala.
A representative for Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Forbes that the congresswoman was certain the issue would be dropped when it was first investigated in 2022.
For as long as she has been in office, Representative AOC has refused to accept money from lobbyists, businesses, or other special interests, according to a statement released by her office.
After Ocasio-attendance Cortez’s at the Met Gala on September 13, 2021, at least three conservative groups lodged objections with the House Ethics Committee.
It has been discovered that AOC’s crew was tardy in paying the bills for the rental of her outfit, cosmetics, and other accessories. Makeup artist’s lawyers, the Wall Group, alleged in a Business Insider report that they were owed $477 by the progressive firebrand until February 2022, nearly a year after the event.
In response to investigators’ questions, she said, “And I simply never, ever, ever would have allowed that to happen to know what I have discovered, but that I wasn’t privy to the invoices, wasn’t privy to the ones that had been delivered.”
And it’s simply a very unfortunate circumstance overall. In particular, I feel awful for the little companies that were harmed.
But she did admit to detectives that “a ball was dropped.”
Lawyer David Mitrani said in a statement that Ocasio-Cortez ‘finds these [payment] delays intolerable, and she has taken many steps to assure nothing of this type will ever happen again.
Yet while this is unfortunate, it does not constitute a breach of House Rules or federal law. There is no indication that the Congresswoman ever sought to avoid these expenditures, the statement said, even after OCE conducted a thorough assessment of her contacts.
We have faith that the Ethics Committee will rule in our favor and drop this.