{"id":26392,"date":"2025-12-08T11:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=26392"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:55:13","slug":"big-update-after-aoc-found-guilty-of-violating-house-ethics-rules-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=26392","title":{"rendered":"Big Update After AOC Found Guilty Of Violating House Ethics Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broke House ethics rules by accepting more than $3,700 in gifts for her appearance at the 2021 Met Gala \u2014 including the now-infamous \u201cTax The Rich\u201d dress \u2014 but paid less than $1,000 for the items.<\/p>\n

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The House Ethics Committee\u00a0found\u00a0that the New York Democrat failed to follow House rules on gifts and improperly gave her boyfriend, Riley Roberts, a free ticket to the exclusive $35,000-per-head event.<\/p>\n

However, the panel has decided not to issue any formal sanctions.<\/p>\n

The committee concluded that Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s conduct violated House rules, laws, and standards of conduct \u2014 both in accepting the gifts and in delaying repayment. Once she repays the remaining value, the committee says the matter will be considered closed.<\/p>\n

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According to the committee, the fair-market value of the rented Brother Vellies dress, shoes, jewelry, handbag, and hairpiece totaled $3,724.04.\u00a0Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s campaign delayed payments for months and eventually paid just $990.76 \u2014 most of it from her own pocket.<\/p>\n

Her staff also disputed some of the invoices and tried to reduce costs by comparing the couture gown to cheaper rentals online.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepresentative Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s attempt to apply a retail rental cost to a handmade couture gown was unrealistic,\u201d the committee\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n

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The report noted that most vendors weren\u2019t paid until after they made repeated attempts to collect \u2014 some even threatened legal action.<\/p>\n

That led to subpoenas from the committee and a more than three-year investigation.<\/p>\n

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While the panel said it found no evidence Ocasio-Cortez \u201cintentionally\u201d underpaid for the goods, it did place blame on her former staffers, including ex-campaign manager Rebecca Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was caught trying to negotiate down the cost of the dress \u2014 from $1,300 to $300 \u2014 and left a $477 hairstylist bill unpaid for nearly six months.<\/p>\n

The hairstylist eventually threatened to report the congresswoman\u2019s campaign to the New York Department of Labor.<\/p>\n

The Ethics Committee said no punishment would be necessary \u2014 as long as Ocasio-Cortez donates $250 to cover her boyfriend\u2019s dinner at the event and pays an additional $2,733.28 to the designer.<\/p>\n

AOC\u2019s chief of staff, Mike Casca, said in a statement, \u201cThe Congresswoman appreciates the Committee finding that she made efforts to ensure her compliance with House Rules and sought to act consistently with her ethical requirements as a Member of the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe accepts the ruling and will remedy the remaining amounts, as she\u2019s done at each step in this process,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Under House rules, members of Congress are barred from accepting gifts \u2014 with a few exceptions, including tickets to charity events if invited by the organization hosting it.<\/p>\n

In this case, Vogue editor Anna Wintour invited Ocasio-Cortez and her boyfriend personally, as guests of\u00a0Vogue<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 not the museum that officially hosts the gala.<\/p>\n

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Wintour also instructed the Brother Vellies designer to custom-make the dress \u2014 something the designer called \u201cinsane,\u201d since she normally only makes shoes and handbags.\u00a0Despite being told to keep expenses low, AOC\u2019s team was met several times with responses like, \u201cMet Gala attendees don\u2019t normally pay for this,\u201d according to her lawyer.<\/p>\n

The rented shoes had a retail value of $635 but were rented for $160. The Brother Vellies handbag was worth $995 and rented for $157. Jewelry was rented for $78, and a paper hibiscus flower for her hair cost $35.<\/p>\n

A year later, in May 2022, AOC\u2019s team received another $5,579 bill for car service, hotel rooms, and accessories like Roberts\u2019 bowtie and cummerbund.<\/p>\n

The report noted that the committee never got a clear answer about why the designer didn\u2019t ask for payment up front.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one appeared to be thinking about the cost of anything, despite the fact that they were told to keep the costs down by the Congresswoman\u2019s staff because the Congresswoman had and has limited financial means,\u201d her lawyer said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Getty Images This article may contain commentary which reflects the author\u2019s opinion. Far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broke House ethics rules by accepting more than $3,700 in gifts for her appearance … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26394,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions\/26394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}