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In reply to the discussion: Payments to company owned by Ocasio-Cortez aide come under scrutiny [View all]Celerity
(44,048 posts)took up the cause, and RW media jumped on the bandwagon, all BEFORE the WaPo story on the 5th.
The Washington Post was not the original source of anything to do with either story. (either the bogus boyfriend being paid story, which then led to the RW National Legal and Policy Center filing new charges.)
Here is a RW story about the WaPo subject BEFORE the WaPo one (no Tardis needed, lolol)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund-by-diverting-campaign-cash-to-his-own-companies
It makes no difference if some of the RW articles are after the WaPo article as they are the RW media and groups started it BEFORE WaPo even reported on it, and also the RWers were keeping it alive (thus you will find article on it after the Post article).
here again is the timeline and verification tht it WAS RW started and pushed
A conservative group alleges Ocasio-Cortez and her allies ran a PAC scam. But there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
While the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, it's not illegal, campaign finance experts said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/fact-check-did-ocasio-cortez-her-team-break-campaign-finance-n980121
David Mitrani, an attorney representing Ocasio-Cortez's campaign and the related organizations named in the FEC complaint, pushed back strongly on the reports in a statement Wednesday, saying that the entities "have at all times been conducted fully in compliance with federal campaign finance laws." Ocasio-Cortez herself denied the allegation on Tuesday to Fox News: "There is no violation."
Campaign finance experts, meanwhile, told NBC News that while the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, there's no evidence of some kind of million-dollar scam as has been alleged in news reports.
snip
here is an article from WEEKS before the WaPo article that shows how this all got started
No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Didn't Hire Her Boyfriend Riley Roberts As A Staffer
ANDREA GONZÁLEZ-RAMÍREZ
LAST UPDATED FEBRUARY 15, 2019, 8:00 PM
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/224559/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-boyfriend-riley-roberts-congress-staff-email
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found herself at the center of another right-wing Twitter conspiracy Friday morning, after a Republican strategist falsely claimed that she had employed her longtime partner Riley Roberts as a paid congressional staffer. The New York congresswoman and her team corrected the record, saying this is not true.
Conservative podcast host Luke Thompson first made the claims. Taking a screenshot from an unknown source, he tweeted: "While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff - drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly." (The tweet was temporarily taken down because the screenshot, which includes Roberts' email and phone number, was said to be in violation of Twitter's terms of service.)
Ocasio-Cortez was quick to debunk the claim, clarifying that Roberts obtained an official House email address in order to get access to her calendar. "Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time. Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense," she tweeted.
Link to tweet
snapshot of that tweet
snip
Both stories were RW-started and RW-spread and certainly not original work by WaPo, so nope no Tardis needed by them, as they were reporting after it all was long out of the bag
Paul Krugman sums it up
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Paul Krugman
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More Paul Krugman Retweeted Brendan Fischer
Aha -- so that's where the "lock her up" thing about AOC is coming from; some of her campaign funds went to a consulting group, which is ... normal practice and completely legal. But if a progressive does it, it becomes a huge scandal.,
Brendan Fischer
@brendan_fischer
Setting up a PAC to recruit candidates and solicit contributions for candidates is legal.
Setting up an LLC to provide campaign consulting services to that PAC and those candidates is also legal.
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