On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief-of-staff Saikat Chakrabarti stated that incarcerated criminals should be able to vote because they are “the people most affected by unjust laws.”
Chakrabarti’s remarks came after Democratic presidential candidates came forward with the idea of allowing terrorists, murderers, rapists, and pedophiles to vote in elections during a series of CNN town halls on Monday.
“What’s the reason NOT to let incarcerated people vote?” Chakrabarti tweeted. “Shouldn’t the people most affected by unjust laws have some say in electing people to change them?”
Chakrabarti’s tweet received heat on social media from many users, here are some of the responses.
Dana Loesch: “Who knew the law against putting a bomb by an 8-year-old and blowing people up was unjust?”
Jeryl Bier: “Why is it that the default assumption is that most people in prison are there unjustly?”
Andrew Follett: “Are you implying that the Boston marathon bomber was unjustly incarcerated? As that was the explicit question that prompted this?”
Chakrabarti has been slammed down by scandals since entering the spotlight with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
He was accused of funneling over $1 million in political donations to his own private companies. And Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti also “obtained majority control of Justice Democrats PAC in December 2017, according to archived copies of the group’s website, and the two appear to retain their control of the group,” as The Daily Caller reported.
“If the Federal Election Commission (FEC) finds that the New York Democrat’s campaign operated in affiliation with the PAC, which had raised more than $1.8 million before her June 2018 primary, it would open them up to ‘massive reporting violations, probably at least some illegal contribution violations exceeding the lawful limits,’ former FEC commissioner Brad Smith said,” The Caller added.
“Ocasio-Cortez never disclosed to the FEC that she and Chakrabarti, who served as her campaign chair, controlled the PAC while it was simultaneously supporting her primary campaign, and former FEC commissioners say the arrangement could lead to multiple campaign finance violations. The group backed 12 Democrats during the 2018 midterms, but Ocasio-Cortez was the only one of those to win her general election.” they added.
Former FEC commissioner Brad Smith said for The Caller: “If this were determined to be knowing and willful, they could be facing jail time. Even if it’s not knowing and willful, it would be a clear civil violation of the act, which would require disgorgement of the contributions and civil penalties. I think they’ve got some real issues here.”
“At minimum, there’s a lot of smoke there, and if there are really only three board members and she and [Chakrabarti] are two of them, sure looks like you can see the blaze. I don’t really see any way out of it,” Smith continued.
“The admission makes it open and shut if someone wants to file a complaint with the FEC. I don’t see how the FEC could not investigate that. We’ve even got their own statement on their website that they control the organization. I don’t see how you could avoid an investigation on that.”