AOC's Chief of Staff Is Out. Is Pelosi to Blame?

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) right before the August recess. On Friday, one week later, AOC's office announced that her chief of staff and early patron, Saikat Chakrabarti, is leaving for a liberal nonprofit focused on the Green New Deal. Chakrabarti had made many high-profile flubs recently, but his worst offense involved a scathing attack on moderate Democrats. It is highly probable that Pelosi asked AOC to oust Chakrabarti in exchange for something AOC wanted.

"Saikat has decided to leave the office of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal," AOC's Director of Communications Corbin Trent said in a statement to The Intercept. "We are extraordinarily grateful for his service to advance a bold agenda and improve the lives of the people in NY-14."

AOC's office framed his departure as another step in the crusade to bring "progressive" change to America. "From his co-founding of Justice Democrats to his work on the Ocasio-Cortez campaign and in the official office, Saikat’s goal has always been to do whatever he can to help the larger progressive movement, and we look forward to continuing working with him to do just that," Trent concluded. Chakrabarti also has a new baby, and reportedly will devote more time to parenting. (Having recently become a father, I can sympathize, but I can also say fatherhood does not preclude working a demanding job.)

Perhaps in order to obfuscate from this big news, Ocasio-Cortez broke some more news to The Intercept: Trent is moving from her congressional office to her campaign. He is "shifting to our campaign side so we can work on some ambitious comms projects we've been looking forward to working on," AOC said in a text message. She faces a Republican challenger, Scherie Murray, a New York businesswoman who immigrated from Jamaica as a child.

According to the official narrative, these are two ordinary staff changes: one staffer is moving from the D.C. office to the campaign, and one is moving to a progressive nonprofit. Yet Chakrabarti's departure is far more significant than AOC is letting on.

After all, Chakrabarti founded Brand New Congress PAC in 2016 and Justice Democrats in 2017. Justice Democrats aimed to get far-left candidates elected to Congress, and AOC was both the beneficiary and the poster child of that effort.

 

This is a long post, and includes some exhaustive detail about some possible financial chicanery between AOC and Charki -- just Standard Operating Procedure for Democrats, as you well know. I urge you to go here https://pjmedia.com/trending/aocs-chief-of-staff-is-out-is-pelosi-to-blame/ to read the entire story!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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