U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY-14) chief of staff and communications director are both leaving her D.C. office, but they’re not going far as one will reportedly help her re-election campaign and the other will help push her progressive agenda.
The Intercept reported that chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti will work with New Consensus to push for the Green New Deal. The liberal organization’s website calls for a utopian world “without poverty or pollution, and with prosperity and dignity for everyone.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director Corbin Trent will serve her reelection campaign in that role, which he first did in 2016, The Intercept said.
Chakrabarti believes he can spend more time pushing for the Green New Deal at New Consensus, The Intercept says, and he wants to spend more time with his new baby as well.
Chakrabarti is a Harvard graduate and technology entrepreneur who became an organizer for Bernie Sanders during his 2016 presidential campaign, The Washington Examiner said.
He founded a PAC called Brand New Congress in 2016 and another called Justice Democrats in 2017, with the stated goal of helping elect liberal candidates to Congress. One of those candidates was Ocasio-Cortez, who, last November, age 29, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
Chakrabarti has been caught up in the recent spat between AOC and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Battleground State News reported in July.
The House Democratic Caucus’s official Twitter account launched a personal attack Friday night on Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. The caucus account was responding to a June tweet in which Chakrabarti claimed that less-radical Blue Dog Democrats, including Democratic Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids, are enabling a “racist system” with their votes. “Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color? Her name is Congresswoman Davids, not Sharice. She is a phenomenal new member who flipped a red seat blue,” read the House Democrats tweet, with a screenshot of Chakrabarti’s tweet attached. Chakrabarti was instructed to “Keep Her Name Out Of Your Mouth.”
Also, Chakrabarti did not file a disclosure revealing his net worth and outside income earned in 2018, despite the congresswoman having the legal means to compel him to do so, Battleground State News reported.
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Photo “Saikat Chakrabarti” by Saikat Chakrabarti.
