The aid of Ocasio-Cortez becomes a symbol of the democratic division



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WASHINGTON – Democrat House Leaders, Their Patience Clearly Crumbled, Reported this Weekend at the Head of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Government Representative, That Her Supposed Efforts to Lead an Insurgency Against Democrats more moderate ones would no longer be tolerated. l & # 39; use.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal-fire woman from the Bronx, granted her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, remarkable leeway to pursue the division policy that made him famous when he led Justice Democrats , a group founded to challenge democrats rooted in primary campaigns.

With this license, Mr. Chakrabarti has become an unelected symbol of the growing disunity of the party, as Democrats try to unite to become a party before what promises to be a bitter struggle for the White House. next year. The battle between Democrats who won the majority in the House last year by overthrowing Republican districts and the smallest, but politically powerful, left of the secure democratic districts has found its cause famous.

Mr Chakrabarti unleashed a firestorm two weeks ago following a violent intraparty brawl on an emergency aid package at the border which, according to advanced countries, did not involve no sufficient restrictions on the Trump administration. Calling the moderate Democrats who poured out a more liberal aid package, he likened them to the "new Southern Democrats".

They "certainly seem very inclined to subject blacks and blacks to today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 1940s," he said on Twitter. He then deleted the tweet.

Friday night, Democratic leaders showed that they were tired of it. Use of the House of Democratic Caucus official Twitter account, they delivered a rhetorical slap that questioned not only the future of Mr. Chakrabarti, but also the question of whether Mrs. Ocasio-Cortez wanted to be an inside legislator or an outsider campaigning to purge the party of centrists and force him to the left.

The reprimand shared a tweet from Mr. Chakrabarti that explained that he thought that the Kansas representative, Sharice Davids, one of the first two Native American women to sit in Congress, allowed for a "racist system" of vote for a weaker border assistance package.

"I do not think people have to be personally racist to set up a racist system," wrote the assistant, to which Democratic leaders asked: "Who is this guy and why does he explicitly choose a Amerindian colored woman? "

The slap ended with: "Keep his name away from your mouth."

This last sentence was full of its own meaning. It echoes a blow to White House advisor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday by Representative Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of Ocasio-Cortez's "squad". who wrote"Keep my name out of your lying mouth."

Drew Hammill, chief of staff to President Nancy Pelosi's chief of staff, retweeted the slap.

Mr. Chakrabarti, a former founder of Silicon Valley who became a left-wing political organizer, has kept the spirit of defender, even after becoming chief of staff of one of the most institutional institutions in the country, the House. This has upset the ranks of lawmakers and democrats. While the convention at Capitol Hill states that aid must be seen and not heard, he has publicly and repeatedly criticized Ms. Pelosi. Perhaps the most annoying for lawmakers, he also encouraged his followers on Twitter to support Liberal candidates who were trying to oust sitting Democrats, a painful reminder of his work with Justice Democrats.

He cultivated a remarkably high profile for a congressional assistant. He "does not only run his office," an article in Washington Post magazine said, "he's leading a movement." The title of the magazine Elle said: "You must know the leader of the snacks of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Saikat Chakrabarti."

Mr. Chakrabarti also remained provocative. he dismissed the reprimand of the Democratic leadership Friday night, saying that "all I had tweeted two weeks ago was to recall the terrible bill on the financing at the border at which 90 + Dems were opposed".

"Our democracy is literally falling apart," Chakrabarti tweeted. "I'm not interested in Twitter mouths without substance."

Justice Democrats, the group that he founded, and more than a dozen other progressive groups have backed him on Saturday, publish a statement expressing concern that "senior Democratic Party leaders and their associates are stepping up attacks on new party leaders" and urging them to focus on "the real border crisis" at the border.

The tragedy may be more reminiscent of a high school council than the House of Representatives, but it created a dilemma for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. The darling Progressive kept silent about the words of her help; his spokesman declined to comment on Saturday. Invited on Thursday to comment on previous tweets of her help, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez replied that she "had not paid attention to that".

This will likely provoke the anger of the members of the House, many of whom are people of color representing moderate to conservative districts. Criticizing legislators even in closed meetings is considered a violation of the protocol by unelected congressional assistants, let alone by public critics, and those who are off the beaten track are suffering the consequences.

As president of a powerful conservative caucus, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Republican Number 2, He fired one of the top aides in 2013 after allegedly collaborating with conservative rights groups to blow up a budget deal with Republican leaders.

"We all rely on staff, but we have to have the confidence of our staff," said Scalise at the time.

But Ocasio-Cortez is proud to avoid conventions – an instinct that has guided her in the ascendancy to become the youngest elected ever elected – and has so far extended this approach to her staff. Shortly after arriving at Capitol Hill, his legislative assistant, Dan Riffle, gave an interview in which he described his fellow congressional advisers as "careerists" of the Ivy League who "do not think big and are not here to change the world ".

Mr. Chakrabarti also discharged his grievances without sparing anyone.

"Pelosi says we can not focus on dismissal because it's a distraction from kitchen table problems. But I challenge you to find voters who can name just one thing the Democrats in the House have done for their kitchen table this year, " Mr. Chakrabarti wrote after the division vote on the border help. "What does this legislative brain do?"

"I like to show my cards and see people's reactions," Chakrabarti told Washington Post Magazine, echoing President Trump. But other controversies preoccupy him – partly because of the excessive attention that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez receives from the right-wing media – for lack of frankness.

After graduating from Harvard, Mr. Chakrabarti worked for a year as a technology associate with Bridgewater Associates, then moved to Silicon Valley to help create the technology company. Stripe. He is presumed rich, but did not file a financial reporting form, senior management advisers said.

Since Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has capped the salaries of her senior assistants to provide her with a base salary of $ 52,000, her employees are below the income threshold that requires the disclosure of financial information. Instead, an ethics committee in the House forced her to compel at least one of her collaborators to "Act on behalf of or with the authority of the member" to file a disclosure form.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez chose Mr. Riffle, the legislative assistant, to present the disclosure, rather than Mr. Chakrabarti.

In March, a conservative group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Mr. Chakrabarti had improperly disclosed the expenses of two political action committees that he had helped establish, which had paid more of a million dollars in 2016 and 2017 to a company that he was running.

The company, Brand New Congress L.L.C., was a branch of a group it had helped to found of the same name and which recruited community organizers as candidates who would all adopt the same platform of progressive transformation; in turn, the group would hire its staff to help run the candidates' campaigns. To do this, said Brand New Congress, the group was to be created as a limited liability company – which is not required to disclose information about its owners or its expenses.

A lawyer for the company stated that Mr. Chakrabarti had never received any salary or profit from the company, the political action committees or the campaign, and that the move was legal.

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