Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) continues to face relentless challenges to her legitimacy concurrent to the high profile she’s established for herself as the youngest woman to ever assume a Congressional seat. This week, she shot down allegations that she’d become a part of the “swamp” and put her boyfriend on her staff, after apparent Republican activist Luke Thompson suggested as much on Twitter.
In response to a photo he shared of Riley Roberts designated as Congressional “staff” in connection to an apparent government email address that also belongs to him, Ocasio-Cortez explained:
‘Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time. Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense.’
Thompson had ranted:
‘While you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] decided to put her boyfriend on staff – drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly.’
While you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff – drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly. pic.twitter.com/bvncwzxY53
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 15, 2019
The screenshot that he shared appears to be garnered from a simple search of an email directory available to Microsoft users. In other words, the source was far from official, and yet he pushed the information as “official” anyway.
Ocasio-Cortez has faced plenty of similar challenges before, and even recently.
For instance, an early draft of a document answering “frequently asked questions” associated with her “Green New Deal” accidentally went out, and even after those working on the project explained what had happened and even while none of the answers appeared in the actual legislation, Republicans ran with it. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) went on a lengthy rant during a House committee hearing on climate change about Democrats supposedly wanting to end air travel, and even President Donald Trump suggested something similar, tweeting that it “would be great for the so-called “Carbon Footprint” to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military – even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!”
The actual Green New Deal is a joint resolution introduced by Congressional members including Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that, among other things, calls for the United States to work towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The move has attracted the support of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Cory Booker (N.J.), while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) proved somewhat dismissive of the proposition.
Ocasio-Cortez has faced other challenges based on her identity, like those who have launched sexist criticism. She has kept working through the setbacks, as has the new Democratic House majority at-large, which announced a new investigation into the Trump team’s ties to foreign interests literally the day after Trump ranted against “ridiculous partisan investigations” that he compared to literal war in his State of the Union address.
Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, has so far used her seat to attack corruption in general, including via a high-profile moment in a recent House Oversight Committee when she got experts to help her explicitly lay out how a corrupt political candidate could essentially buy their way into office and then pad them and their buddies.
Check out Twitter’s response to Ocasio-Cortez…
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
