Since her surprising primary victory and subsequent election to Congress in 2018, Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proven to be a media-adored progressive lightning rod who has almost single-handedly helped moved the party further toward the liberal fringe.
The freshman congresswoman and her activist team may have rocked the establishment boat a bit too much and opened up serious intra-party rifts since coming to Washington, D.C., however, as two of Ocasio-Cortez’s top staffers have now exited her office on Capitol Hill, ostensibly to serve the left’s agenda in other capacities.
Staffers depart
The two staffers set to leave Ocasio-Cortez’s office are her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, and her communications director, Corbin Trent, both of whom have been at the congresswoman’s side since she first launched her campaign for office.
Chakrabarti has reportedly left to join an organization called New Consensus, which is purportedly a nonprofit organization focused on climate change, the Green New Deal and other progressive causes.
Meanwhile, Trent will transition to Ocasio-Cortez’s 2020 re-election campaign and essentially reprise his 2018 role as campaign communications director.
Moving on
In a statement to the Intercept, Trent said, “Saikat has decided to leave the office of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal.”
Reports suggest that Chakrabarti will have more time to focus on pushing the Green New Deal and other progressive priorities at New Consensus than he would otherwise have while working as Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff. His role in AOC’s office will be assumed by Ariel Eckblad, who previously served as Ocasio-Cortez’s legislative director.
As for Trent, Ocasio-Cortez explained in a text message to the Intercept that he would be “shifting to our campaign side so we can work on some ambitious comms projects we’ve been looking forward to working on” with respect to her re-election effort, which will undoubtedly be challenged.
Controversies mount
While the statements from the congresswoman’s office seem to imply that the exit of the staffers was voluntary and planned, there is nevertheless some speculation that the exit of Chakrabarti, in particular, stemmed from his and Ocasio-Cortez’s clashes with moderate Democrats and the political establishment led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In a recent fight over a border spending bill that provided humanitarian aid to detained migrants, Chakrabarti had stunningly compared moderate Democrats to the Southern Democrats of old and strongly implied that, while the moderates might not exactly be racist segregationists, their support for the border bill empowered and emboldened racist segregationists, an assertion that had moderates and progressives at each other’s throats for a time.
Chakrabarti has also come under fire for his involvement with political action committees Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats. It has been reported that as a result of Federal Election Commission complaints filed against Chakrabarti in March for a series of alleged violations, a full-blown investigation has commenced. According to Fox News, complaints alone will only lead to a formal investigation if a preliminary review finds sufficient evidence to suggest that a violation did indeed occur.
While it is always possible that this shake-up of Ocasio-Cortez’s staff was a plan already in the works, the timing is nevertheless suspicious, and it certainly appears as though the freshman congresswoman is seeking to put some serious distance between herself and her embattled, now-former chief of staff.
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