Is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez married? The marital status of the bomb-throwing radical-left congressperson is being questioned after an investigation by the Washington Free Beacon found that financial disclosure forms filled out by Ocasio-Cortez referred to her boyfriend Riley Roberts as her “spouse.”
“They are not legally married,” AOC spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the Washington Free Beacon. “House Ethics has commonly recognized the term spouse to extend to long-term partners.”
Nice try, but no dice. The House Ethics Committee’s Code of Official Conduct defines a spouse as “someone to whom you are legally married.” AOC actually had the option to describe Roberts as her fiancé — something she announced last May.
It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes ☺️ https://t.co/i5cm9awN3S
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 19, 2022
But taken at face value, four legal filings submitted to the House Ethics Committee pertaining to AOC’s overseas travels in 2022 and 2023 suggest the pair have been legally married at least since Jan. 13, 2023. If that is the case, the “Squad” member can no longer leverage the so-called boyfriend loophole to evade 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.
Filing a false form with the Ethics Committee can get a congressperson in deep trouble. Just ask serial liar and fabulist George Santos.
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.
According to Networthcheckers.com, Riley Roberts has a net worth of $1.5-$2 million — mostly from his web consulting firm. Unless AOC is playing a shell game with her assets, there’s no obvious reason not to disclose Roberts’ financials.
“If Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is going to refer to Mr. Roberts as her spouse in the context of one kind of ethics disclosure, it would be logical and consistent for her to do so in the context of all ethics disclosures, including annual financial disclosures and periodic transaction reports,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the senior government affairs manager at the Project on Government Oversight.
The confusion surrounding Ocasio-Cortez’s finances comes as she has established herself as a champion of ethics and transparency in government. She introduced legislation in April that would ban members of Congress and their spouses from owning stocks.
Ocasio-Cortez has also attacked Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas for his supposed ethical transgressions. The “Squad” member led an effort in August calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a federal investigation into the conservative justice’s “blatant disregard for judicial ethics” for “failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires.”
“If they were married then she would be required to disclose his finances on her 2022 financial disclosure,” said Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust. “There is no exception to this rule.”
Related: AOC Sends DOJ a Letter Demanding Investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Misrepresenting financial information on an official form could lead to a $50,000 fine or five years in prison. She could also be reprimanded by the Ethics Committee or censured by the House if her concealment of Roberts’ finances was deemed deliberate.
Obviously, she can’t claim that listing Roberts as her “spouse” was an “oversight.” Unless she went to Vegas and married Roberts after a drunken binge, it’s not like she can claim forgetfulness.
AOC has some ‘splainin’ to do.
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