Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — known as AOC — is under scrutiny for describing her fiancé, Riley Roberts, as her “spouse” in forms filed with the House Ethics Committee in 2023, despite not being married to him.
Ocasio-Cortez, in post-travel disclosure forms to the House Ethics Committee, listed Roberts as her “spouse” for a February trip to Japan and South Korea funded by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and an August trip to South America, funded by George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, according to the forms. Roberts allegedly paid his own expenses.
Ocasio-Cortez spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the Washington Free Beacon that Ocasio-Cortez and Roberts were not “legally married,” and said, “House Ethics has commonly recognized the term spouse to extend to long-term partners.”
However, the committee uses a strict definition of the term “spouse,” according to the WFB, which is “someone to whom you are legally married.”
There was a box for “other,” that Ocasio-Cortez could have checked, with an option to write in “fiancé,” according to the form.
If Roberts is indeed her “spouse,” then Ocasio-Cortez would have to disclose financial information for Roberts.
The snafu is drawing attention, since Ocasio-Cortez has positioned herself as a champion of ethics in Congress, and willful misrepresentations on disclosure forms could subject her to criminal prosecution, the WFB noted.
According to the report:
Willful misrepresentations in congressional financial disclosure forms could result in civil penalties of up to $50,000, or, in extreme cases, imprisonment of up to five years, according to the House Ethics Committee. Ocasio-Cortez could also be reprimanded by the committee or be censured by a majority vote of the House if she intentionally concealed her husband’s finances from the public, said Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center.
Ocasio-Cortez also reportedly made two references to her “spouse” in her 2022 financial disclosure forms reporting a trip to Venice, Italy, where she said she paid for their flight expenses. The pair appears to have attended a four-day art conference sponsored by the Mara Foundation, a Los Angeles-based charity, according to the Beacon.
Ocasio-Cortez has since then proposed legislation to ban members of Congress and their spouses from owning stocks, and has attacked Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas for his “blatant disregard for judicial ethics” for “failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires.”
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