New documents from the congressional ethics committee’s investigation into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s attendance at the 2021 Met Gala reveal that her lawyers warned her not to attend out of fear she might be violating congressional code.
AOC’s anti-corruption lawyer told the congresswoman’s team that she could attend the event, but only if she was listed as a guest of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and not as a guest of Vogue magazine, the organizer of the event.
The lawyer feared that if she was listed as a guest of Vogue, she might be violating congressional rules that prohibit representatives from accepting gifts from companies that use lobbyists, as Vogue’s parent company, Advance Media Publications, does.
Despite those warnings, records showed the congresswoman accepted a pair of $35,000 gala tickets and was listed as a guest of Vogue the night of the gala, but the next morning staff began saying she was a personal guest. from Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
The damning documents also show how AOC managed to pay just $300 for her $1,300 dress emblazoned with the phrase ‘Tax the Rich,’ along with hours of design, accessory and styling work, then took months to repay the paltry sum. . .
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) attends the Met Gala in her ‘Tax the Rich’ dress
After the gala, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s staff said she was a guest of Anna Wintour.
In a message to his staff, an AOC lawyer warned of the risks of his attendance and advised him how he could do so legally.
‘The congresswoman could accept an invitation from [the Met], but not Vogue’, he wrote. ‘Since Advance Publications is a registered lobbyist, we’ll have to be very careful!’
However, AOC and her boyfriend accepted Vogue tickets that explicitly stated they were “Vogue guests,” according to the New York Post.
However, the day after the gala, Vogue employees contacted the AOC office to inform them that they had received a number of inquiries from the media about the nature of the congresswoman’s attendance, and to say that they were being told to the media that she had been a personal guest of Wintour instead of saying that she was a guest of the magazine.
‘I hope the [C]Congresswoman had a blast last night!’ wrote a Vogue staffer. “We have had a number of inquiries about AOC’s invitation and whether she paid for her ticket. Mainly from Page Six.
“We also alerted the museum. Since she was a guest of Vogue, we planned to say in the background that she was a guest of Anna.” [Wintour]’s. Of course, I wanted to check with you before replying.
The documents showed that Met staff members were even aware that AOC’s attendance at the event was questionable, with one staffer writing: “We believe this needle may be threaded with the following: Anna Wintour, Met Trustee and organizer of the event, invited AOC as a guest of the museum.’
An email from a Vogue staffer asking the AOC team how they would like to tell the press that the congresswoman attended the Met Gala
A message requesting late payment of some of the costs of AOC’s outfit for the Met Gala
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Met Gala in 2021. Her bag matched her ‘Tax the Rich’ dress
The documents also showed that AOC managed to pay a fraction of the cost of her Tax the Rich dress, along with all the work that went into making it for her and getting her ready for the night, and then it took months to pay for everything.
AOC was billed just $1,300 for the dress, and the Brooklyn-based designer who made it billed the dress as a “rental,” according to the Post.
The congresswoman’s staff was able to shave $1,000 off that price, as well as lower the price of her shoes from $635 by also including them as rentals.
And in a text message the designer and AOC staff were asked if they would provide tuxedo accessories for the congresswoman’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts.
‘Just confirming that you are thinking of providing [AOC’s boyfriend] with a tie/sash? By the way, no restrictions for Riley,” the text read.
The staffer told investigators that the “restriction” he was talking about was congressional codes of ethics, according to the Post.
AOC then failed to pay thousands of dollars in bills for the night in a timely manner, including $344.85 in recovery costs that were ultimately passed on to a collection agency. The agency contacted their staff to say that the invoice was ‘WAY overdue’.
It also took so long to pay $477.73 worth of hair that a representative for the stylist approached her staff and said, “It would be terrible if we had to file a complaint with the New York Department of Labor against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
More than $1,000 in transportation paid for by Conde Nast went unpaid for eight months, as did $4,602.92 in bills at the Carlisle Hotel from the night, according to the Post.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows off her ‘Tax the Rich’ dress that took months to pay off
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) and with her boyfriend, Riley Roberts (right)
A spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez told Forbes that when she began the investigation in 2022, she was confident the case would be thrown out.
“The congresswoman has always taken ethics incredibly seriously, refusing any donations from lobbyists, corporations, or other special interests,” the AOC spokesperson said.
At least three conservative groups filed complaints with the House Ethics Committee after Ocasio-Cortez attended the Met Gala on September 13, 2021.
He denied his guilt for the delay in paying the designers of his outfit.
“And I would never, ever, never have allowed that to happen knowing what I learned, but I wasn’t aware of the invoices, I wasn’t aware of the ones that had been sent out,” he told investigators.
And it is a deeply unfortunate situation. I feel really bad, especially for the small businesses that were affected.’
She acknowledged to investigators that “there was a ball that was dropped.”
In a statement, David Mitrani, an attorney for Ocasio-Cortez, said the congresswoman “finds these [payment] delays are unacceptable, and she has taken several steps to ensure nothing of this nature happens again.
“However, while regrettable, this matter definitely does not rise to the level of a violation of House Rules or federal law. Even after OCE’s exhaustive review of the congresswoman’s personal communications, there is no evidence that she ever intended to avoid these expenses,” the statement continued.
“We are confident that the Ethics Committee will dismiss this matter.”
The Ethics Committee is now considering the referral sent by the Congressional Ethics Office, but they have yet to investigate, according to Lauren Hitt, communications director for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.