Another day, another possible Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) ethics scandal.
For someone who has only been in office a few years, she has had more ethics scandals than lifelong politicians.
The latest is claiming her fiancé is her spouse, which could, technically, send her to jail.
Bad Filing
The issue at hand is that AOC claimed her fiancé, Riley Roberts, was her "spouse" in her disclosure forms this year.
The two have never been legally married.
Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for AOC, stated, “They are not legally married. House Ethics has commonly recognized the term ‘spouse’ to extend to long-term partners.”
That is completely untrue.
The House Ethics manual specifically stated that a "spouse" is defined as someone to whom the member of Congress is “legally married.”
If found guilty of knowingly lying on her forms, she could face a $50,000 fine and up to five years in prison, but we all know that will not happen.
Her spokesperson made sure of that with the answer that she gave above.
AOC will claim that she misread the policy and since they have been longtime partners, she considers him her spouse, you know, like Democrats consider Donald Trump of insurrection. They say it, so it does not have to be proven in a court of law.
The other aspect of this is that if she was claiming him as her spouse, his finances would also have to be disclosed on forms, which has not been done here.
So, did she pick and choose the parts of the ethics manual that she wanted to read?
Ultimately, it will be the House Ethics Committee that decides her fate, and we all know how those hearings work.
Even when people are guilty, at worst, they get censured, which is basically a "you were bad letter" that is published and they are sent on their way.
Criminals investigating criminals… what else would we expect?
