DC: A Washington, D.C.-based ethics group is claiming that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media usage violates House ethics rules against using taxpayer resources for political purposes.
Ocasio-Cortez’s political Instagram account contains direct links to her House Instagram account and includes a link for political contributions, alongside posts of official video footage on the House floor, according to a complaint Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) plans to file Thursday with the Office of Congressional Ethics. The group claims these actions violate House ethics rules.
“In a way, it’s a straight forward complaint,” Kendra Arnold, executive director of FACT, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Broadly speaking, the rules clearly define that politics and government works cannot overlap. There are reasons for that: mostly because we don’t want our taxpayer dollars going toward campaigns.” FACT is a nonprofit group whose past president was Matthew Whitaker, an attorney who served as President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general in 2018 and 2019.
“One is influencing the other,” Arnold said, referring to what she believes is the New York Democrat’s penchant for using Twitter as a form of cross promotion. “Once we elect … you cannot use whatever the government provides you for political purposes. Part of the issue is one violation stacked on another.”
House ethics rules forbid lawmakers from using resources like House video for political purposes, the complaint notes. House ethics rules prohibit a member from posting a link to her official social media site on a campaign social media site. She solicited donations on the page that used official House video footage, according to FACT. This is not the first ethical complaint Ocasio-Cortez has had this week. more here
Before you lefties start screeching and hyperventilating, I need you to take several deep breaths, then sit back and wait for the news that Trump is once again allowed to block people on his Twitter. At that point, you may commence screeching.
OOOOOOO are they going to take away her desert too?
Ethics investigations are just dog whistles from the KKK Party whenever a strong, person of color speaks Truth to Power ™ and violates every law in the book to personally enrich themselves while in service to a noble pursuit of smashing the patriarchy and making the decreasingly inclusive The Future Is Black, Female, Gay, Latina or whatever you aren’t.
Personally, I think this is a more likely a newbie mistake made by a person with an IQ less than 80, so I will giver her some benefit of the doubt.
That is not to say I would giver her a pass, but this sounds like a fairly technical violation so, while I would love her to be driven from Congress in disgrace, I do not think this is enough. But it is another pebble in a probable avalanche.
i can just hear it now,
‘Butt, butt, Trump tweetsis worsterer things then mines’
wudabouthimz?
I’d prefer she just post film of herself at home playing with her twitter. No sound of course.