There is "substantial reason to believe" Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accepted "impermissible gifts" linked to her 2021 attendance at the Met Gala, raising the prospect that she broke House rules and possibly federal law.
The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended in a 5-0 vote that the House continue reviewing the allegations against Ocasio-Cortez, according to documents released Thursday. The report comes the same day the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican accused of campaign finance violations. It has not launched an inquiry into Ocasio-Cortez.
The Ethics Committee announced in December that it was investigating Ocasio-Cortez, though it did not disclose the subject of its inquiry at the time. The move led to speculation, acknowledged on Thursday, that the investigation related to a complaint filed by a conservative watchdog last year questioning whether her ticket to the $35,000-a-plate gala was allowed under House rules.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body that refers matters to the House Ethics Committee, concluded on Thursday that if Ocasio-Cortez "accepted impermissible gifts, then she may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law."
The lawmaker, who has denied any wrongdoing, attracted headlines for wearing a dress emblazoned with "Tax the Rich" to the event.
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Lauren Hilt, a spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez, dismissed the idea that the congresswoman violated House rules and expressed confidence the Ethics Committee will dismiss the allegations against her.
"Though no Ethics violation has been found, the Office of Congressional Ethics ('OCE') did identify that there were delays in paying vendors for costs associated with the Congresswoman’s attendance at the Met Gala. The Congresswoman finds these delays unacceptable, and she has taken several steps to ensure nothing of this nature will happen again," she said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“However, while regrettable, these delayed payments definitively do not rise to the level of a violation of House Rules. Even after OCE’s exhaustive review of the Congresswoman’s personal communications, there is no record of the Congresswoman refusing to pay for these expenses. To the contrary, there are several explicit, documented communications, from prior to OCE’s review, that show the Congresswoman fully understood that she had to pay for these expenses from her own personal funds — as she ultimately did," she added.