Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) could be facing more issues yet again, this time over confusion on how she is listing her partner, Riley Roberts as her "spouse" in forms filed with the House Ethics Committee in 2023, even though her office says she is not actually married, as Andrew Kerr at the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.
AOC submitted four legal filings to the Committee about her overseas travel in 2022 and 2023, with Roberts being listed as her spouse since January 13, 2023, Kerr explained. If Roberts is indeed her husband, than AOC can't use the boyfriend loophole anymore to avoid public disclosure of his finances. "While lawmakers are required to disclose financial information about their spouses, live-in romantic partners and fiancés are exempt from the rule," the reported noted. His finances would now be subject to financial disclosure.
As Kerr highlighted about the filings and lack of disclosures:
Ocasio-Cortez did not disclose any of Roberts’s reportable stock holdings, assets, liabilities, or income on her latest financial disclosure submitted in August, though she did make two references to her "spouse" in the filing.
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Ocasio-Cortez first identified Roberts as her "spouse" when she requested authorization from the House Ethics Committee on January 13 for the pair to accept sponsored travel to Japan and South Korea the following month. Upon her return, Ocasio-Cortez again identified Roberts as her "spouse" in a signed disclosure to the committee dated March 13.
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Ocasio-Cortez again referred to Roberts as her "spouse" in a gift travel disclosure form submitted in September detailing her August travels to South America. Ocasio-Cortez said Roberts accompanied her on the trip, which was funded by George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society.
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Ocasio-Cortez also made two references to her "spouse" in her 2022 financial disclosure. Ocasio-Cortez reported that she paid for their flight expenses to Venice, Italy, for a week-long vacation in August that year. During that trip, the pair appears to have attended a four-day art conference sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Mara Foundation, an obscure Los Angeles-based charity that awards prizes to artists, according to records obtained by the Free Beacon.
"They are not legally married," AOC spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the outlet. "House Ethics has commonly recognized the term spouse to extend to long-term partners."
However, as the report cites, and as one can see from the Committee on Ethics House Ethics Manual, defines a spouse as "someone to whom you are legally married." The forms included in Kerr's report show that the congresswoman had the option of checking "spouse," "child," or "other," which included the option to specify, in this case that Roberts was her fiancé.
The word "spouse" is included 161 times in the manual. A footnote on page 39, when discussing gifts from relatives includes that definition of spouse mentioned above.
Kerr goes on to mention possible explanations for Hitt's statement and AOC listing Roberts as her spouse, though they still could lead the congresswoman into trouble:
Ocasio-Cortez did not disclose any of Roberts’s reportable stock holdings, assets, liabilities, or income on her latest financial disclosure submitted in August, though she did make two references to her "spouse" in the filing.
It’s unclear why Ocasio-Cortez considers Roberts her spouse for the purposes of overseas travel but not when it comes to financial disclosure. It’s also unclear why Ocasio-Cortez never identified Roberts as her spouse in ethics disclosures prior to 2023, even though, according to her office, the legal status of their relationship has remained unchanged since she joined Congress in 2019.
It’s possible that Hitt was referring to the Office of Congressional Ethics, which considers long-term romantic partners of lawmakers to be "synonymous with a spouse." But the Office of Congressional Ethics is effectively subservient to the House Ethics Committee. As an independent entity, the Office of Congressional Ethics cannot make legally binding enforcement decisions against lawmakers; it simply makes enforcement recommendations to the Ethics Committee.
Citing the Washington Free Beacon report and a posted thread from Kerr, our sister site of Twitchy cheekily wondered "We can't try to date her anymore?" In response to criticisms about Roberts wearing sandals while the pair vactioned in the free state of Florida in late December of 2021, when he was then her boyfriend, AOC claimed that Republicans were "mad they can't date me."
If Republicans are mad they can’t date me they can just say that instead of projecting their sexual frustrations onto my boyfriend’s feet.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 31, 2021
Ya creepy weirdos https://t.co/Z7bZCgXpWJ
Filing false information with the House Ethics Committee is a mistake that one does not want to make, given that she could be subject to criminal prosecution.
This latest move from the congresswoman has experts concerned. "It is concerning that she would not consistently and accurately describe her relationship with him. Clearly there is only one correct description, and the different settings that she provided different answers in appear to be both for her benefit and to avoid public transparency," Kendra Arnold, the executive director for Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), said in a statement for Townhall. FACT has filed ethics complaints against members before.
Such ethics concerns come after the House Ethics Committee had also found that AOC likely violated federal law for her attendance at the MET Gala in 2021. As Katie also covered in May, her violations were worse than initially thought, though, given that she stiffed vendors, which the Commitee is still investigating.