Thank goodness Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a Republican or this would be a huge news story. Supporters of the New Green Deal, came out for a “Fun Run” in Queens to lend their financial support for the planet’s health. What they got instead, was the opportunity to unknowingly donate to Ocasio-Cortez’s reelection campaign. The campaign event raised over $11K in total.
As one very famous loser once put it, “What difference does it make?”
NYP reports – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a 5k in Queens Saturday that she billed as “a Family Fun Run supporting U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal on the Saturday following Earth Day.”
But many of the 400 runners didn’t realize their $30 registration fees were going directly into the lawmaker’s campaign coffers.
“We’re getting together for our own health, for our planet’s health … and to fight for the Green New Deal together,” the freshman Democrat told the participants before they set off.
Environmentally conscious supporters — who jogged through Astoria Park alongside a beaming, strolling AOC — believed their money was going to help save the planet.
“It’s to help the environment. To support the Green New Deal,” another woman said. “It’s a good cause.”
A vaguely worded notices on AOC’s Facebook page — saying that the run would support “U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & the Green New Deal” — worsened the confusion.
But the fine print on a third event-related website revealed the truth.
“Registration fees are contributions to AOC for Congress,” reads the legal disclosure on aoc5k.com, which lists the Federal Election Commission rules that donors must follow.
Kevin Fasick of the New York Post caught up with Rep Ocasio-Cortez at the “Fun Run,” where he asked her if she thought she was decieving the participants who thought their registration fees were going to help fund the “New Green Deal” and not into her campaign coiffers? Ocasio-Cortez, despite being warned by her handlers not to respond, told Fasick, “I don’t think so.”
Even kids as young as 3 became unknowing political donors — ponying up $20 fees to join a kids’ 1k.
But by fudging the fact that those fees were actually campaign contributions, AOC may have enticed constituents into inadvertently breaking federal election laws.
Parents, for example, can’t contribute their own funds in a child’s name.
