Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent out a fundraising email in mid-November asking supporters to chip in “$5 or anything you can” to spread holiday joy across New York City ahead of Thanksgiving, calling on donors to help pay for turkeys for needy families.
But instead of directing donors to local charities coordinating turkey drives, as she did in years past, the appeal funneled contributions straight into her campaign account through ActBlue, raising serious legal and ethical red flags.
According to a report from the New York Post, “clicking on the contribution link sends people directly to a campaign fundraising page operated by ActBlue, where donors are prompted to make a one-time or recurring monthly donation.”
Selecting a dollar amount brings a disclosure that the appeal is “paid for by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress” and a reminder that donations are not deductible as charitable contributions at tax time.
Like dozens of pols across Gotham, AOC has given away hundreds of gobblers since 2019, but as rumors swirl about her run for Senate or even the White House in 2028, she decided to change her fundraising recipe.
Instead of having supporters send donations directly to community organizations organizing turkey drives — like she did in 2021 when she reported raising $33,589.64 for three local charities — she’s having people send money to her campaign.
“A campaign is not supposed to be a pass-through for charitable work,” former City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli, a Republican, told the Post. “What if she raised enough money for a million turkeys? Would she buy a million turkeys, or would she keep $990,000 for her campaign and then throw the rest of the turkeys out the back of a truck and take a photo-op? This is a clear case of why a campaign is not a charitable organization.”
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But the criticism of AOC’s shady tactics was bipartisan. City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who has also hosted turkey drives, agreed with Borelli.
“Socialists like AOC and Mamdani love to promise everything for free, but somehow it always ends with them shaking down working people under the guise of community good will,” he said. “It is a typical bait and switch, pretending to be for the people while quietly pillaging them for every dollar they can get.”
The Post reviewed more than a dozen New York politicians who host turkey drives; ; only two officeholders—AOC and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY)—used their campaign accounts, but AOC stood out as the only one who used her campaign to funnel donations
Meeks has been named the most corrupt member of Congress several years in a row.
Others instead coordinate between local charities, community groups or grocery stores donating the birds, and constituents in need. City Council Member Sandra Ung (D-Flushing), for example, handed out 526 turkeys last year donated by area businesses.
It gets worse. According to the FEC, when a politician raises money for a community charity, as AOC did with her email plea, there’s no legal obligation to disclose how much is raised or where it goes. That means no one outside her inner circle knows how much was raised or how many turkeys ever reached a needy family—if any did at all.
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