As sure as the sun comes up on the morning, one thing you can count on from liberal New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that she hates people with money.
At least that’s what she claims.
But now, AOC is caught in a financial scandal involving thousands in hard-earned taxpayer dollars that suddenly vanished under her watch.
And a top government watchdog is preparing to investigate.
Americans for Public Trust, a nonprofit and nonpartisan watchdog group that targets corruption, is calling on the House of Representatives to launch a probe into whether AOC misappropriated her taxpayer-funded member allowance.
The complaint stems from allegations that accuse her of misusing taxpayer funds on dance “training.”
alleged that Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), 35, tapped into her Member Representational Allowance to shell out $3,700 to “Juan D Gonzalez” and $850 to “Bombazo Dance Co Inc” for what was described as “training” in December.
The watchdog on Tuesday sent a complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) and argued that the rep made the payments in “contravention of federal law and the standards of the House of Representatives.”
Ocasio-Cortez had dismissed concerns about the two December 2024 payments and seemingly implied they were campaign expenses, which the watchdog argued supports its case that the funds were misappropriated.
“100% wrong. None of this is taxpayer money, this is an FEC filing. Be loud and wrong about something else. Try again next time,” she wrote on X Saturday in response to a critique.
100% wrong. None of this is taxpayer money, this is an FEC filing. Be loud and wrong about something else. Try again next time
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 8, 2025
However, the filing states that Ocasio-Cortez’s “assertion that these expenses are ‘an FEC filing,’ and not reflective of her MRA – as well as her claim that ‘[n]one of this is taxpayer money’ – is both troubling and obviously incorrect.”
“Either she does not know the difference between her campaign funds and MRA, or, more likely, she knows the highlighted expenses were not for official business and should have been paid by her campaign and reported to the FEC.”
Member Representational Allowance (MRA) is a fund that the House provides members to help foot the bill for official expenses related to staff compensation, travel, rent, printing documents, mail, equipment and more.
In fiscal year 2023, the House allocated roughly $810 million for the Member Representational Allowance, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said in an interview with Fox News that, “Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s troubling payments from her taxpayer funded account for activities such as dance classes should be investigated.”
“Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s troubling payments from her taxpayer funded account for activities such as dance classes should be investigated. In the era of reining in government spending, the American people deserve to know lawmakers are being good stewards of their tax dollars.”
This isn’t the first instance of AOC facing ethics complaints.
Two years ago, she was probed over the 2021 Met Gala and revelations that she received a free ticket to attend the star-studded New York City charity event, according to the New York Post.
She also received a discounted rate for renting a white Brother Vellies dress designed by Aurora James that featured the bright red words “Tax the Rich” as well as a handbag that she carried at the gala.
Reps are restricted under ethics rules from receiving free gifts, barring certain exceptions, but the Met Gala was not one of them.
Staffers “could not explain” the discount, and the OCE unanimously recommended that the House Ethics Committee conduct further investigation of whether she had accepted “impermissible gifts.”
AOC was also subject to a complaint backed by the Heritage Foundation in 2023 claiming that she was “falsely accusing” and “defaming” Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the Libs of TikTok X account.