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No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Didn't Hire Her Boyfriend Riley Roberts As A StafferRefinery29 (some leftwing site)Andrea González-RamÃrezFebruary 15, 2019, 11:03 AMRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found herself at the center of another right-wing Twitter conspiracy Friday morning, after a Republican strategist falsely claimed that she had employed her longtime partner Riley Roberts as a paid congressional staffer. The New York congresswoman and her team corrected the record, saying this is not true.Luke Thompson, vice president of the Republican analytics firm Applecart, first made the claims. Taking a screenshot from an unknown source, he tweeted: "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." (The tweet has since been deleted because the screenshot, which included Roberts' email and phone number, was found in violation of Twitter's terms of service.)Ocasio-Cortez was quick to debunk the claim, clarifying that Roberts obtained an official House email address in order to get access to her calendar. "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," she tweeted.But Thompson, not one to take the L, questioned whether Roberts is being paid, doing any staff or volunteer work, and why he would have access to Ocasio-Cortez's calendar since he's not her "spouse." (The couple began dating in college and have lived together for years.) Ocasio-Cortez' chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, further clarified: "He's not paid. We have no volunteers in the office. He's not doing any government work. He can see her calendar just like spouses/partners/family members in other congressional office." ...
(((tedfrank))) Verified account @tedfrankTwitter punishes a journalist who exposed AOC for putting a boyfriend on Congressional staff because he posted the government directory listing him.11:03 AM - 15 Feb 2019 ___________________Robert Blizzard @robertblizzardAlso, FEC reports show @AOC paid Riley Roberts $1,750 out of her campaign account. https://twitter.com/ltthompso/status/1096407285851713537 …10:38 AM - 15 Feb 2019 from Alexandria, VA
Steve Stampley @stevestampleyFWIW, I worked for three different Members of Congress. We never gave a spouse or boyfriend official accounts so that they could access the calendar. YMMV.10:12 AM - 15 Feb 2019
WASHINGTON – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s relationship with boyfriend Riley Roberts is official.Roberts has been granted a government “house.gov†email address so he can access Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional calendar, the 29-year-old congresswoman confirmed Friday.Spouses of members of Congress are afforded privileges, such as a House email address, a congressional pin to bypass security and a House license plate to enter Capitol grounds and enjoy parking privileges, House aides say.While he’s not officially a spouse, Roberts can have access to House email for calendar purposes, according to the office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.“From time to time, at the request of members, spouses and partners are provided House email accounts for the purposes of viewing the member’s calendar,†said David O’Boyle, a spokesman for the administrative office.While the official email account, commonly reserved for House staff, initially created speculation that Roberts was on the government payroll, Ocasio-Cortez’s office says her boyfriend is not employed by Congress.
Sure looks like that says "Staff" to me.Didn't take her long to adopt the ways if the inside the Beltway crowd.
The Congresswoman Loves the SwampHer Wealthy Chief of Staff used a PAC to Pay Her BoyfriendLuke ThompsonFeb 20Last Friday, my mentions died for your sins. I posted a screen grab of Riley Roberts’s House Microsoft Outlook card, including his official house.gov email address, office phone number, and his designation as “Staffâ€. Roberts is the boyfriend of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Congresswoman was upset.Throwing caution to the wind, she stormed into my mentions, asserting this was just a way to give Mr. Roberts access to her official calendar. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1096420134435123201Her Chief of Staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, soon followed, reiterating the calendar claim and accusing me of doxxing Mr. Roberts by posting his publicly available LinkedIn profile (which he deleted) and his official government address and the office phone number. ...Neither AOC nor Chakrabarti said why Roberts needs access to her official calendar. ...AOC hasn’t exactly been winning friends lately, which is how I got Roberts’s Outlook screen grab in the first place. A rumor on the Hill was circulating that Roberts had attended a Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting. A tipster looked to see if he’d been given staff credentials. It appeared he had. All agreed this was irregular if he was just a spouse. ...
This is priceless. Read the whole thing hereAs noted in my comments on the original post of this thread, the argument that she didn't improperly put her boyfriend on the payroll is utter nonsense. The article trying to justify her actions is utter nonsense.