AOC’s partner, Riley Roberts, is a ‘spouse’ to secure free gifts, but not when it comes to financial transparency
The House Ethics Committee rebuked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) for simultaneously claiming her longtime partner, Riley Roberts, is and isn’t her “spouse.”
The committee’s rebuke stemmed from a lengthy explanation Ocasio-Cortez’s attorney provided to justify why the New York lawmaker accepted a free ticket worth $35,000 for Roberts to attend the 2021 Met Gala alongside her. At the time, that was a gift Ocasio-Cortez could only accept for her legally-married spouse. But Ocasio-Cortez has never been legally married. She has lived with Roberts since 2016 and the pair became engaged in 2022, but there’s no evidence the couple has legally tied the knot, and Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t been pictured wearing her engagement ring in public since November 2023.
Despite that, to Ocasio-Cortez, “Roberts is considered a ‘spouse’,” her attorney, David Mitrani, explained to the House Ethics Committee in his May 16 letter.
Roberts is only considered her “spouse” in context of federal campaign finance law, Mitrani said, an interpretation that Ocasio-Cortez has used to grant her partner several privileges typically afforded only to legally-married spouses of lawmakers. That includes securing Roberts his free ride to the 2021 Met Gala and later, in 2023, gifted travel to Japan and South Korea, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Mitrani revealed in his letter that Roberts has also owned a congressional “spouse pin” ever since Ocasio-Cortez entered Congress in 2019, a bauble that grants him access to parts of the Capitol complex not accessible to the public.
There are drawbacks to being a congressional spouse, such as having to disclose one’s sources of income and financial holdings. But Roberts isn’t subjected to those, Mitrani explained to the committee. That’s because “under the Committee’s … financial disclosure guidance, Mr. Roberts is not considered a spouse,” Ocasio-Cortez’s attorney wrote, adding that the couple hasn’t yet “taken steps to bring the law or religion into their relationship.”
The Ethics Committee rebuked Ocasio-Cortez for her dual-use of the term “spouse” to define her relationship with Roberts deep in the footnotes of the committee’s July report ordering Ocasio-Cortez to repay $3,000 in impermissible gifts she received when she attended the 2021 Met Gala in her infamous “Tax the Rich” dress.
“The Committee further notes that at the same time Representative Ocasio-Cortez was seeking to take advantage of exceptions to the Gift Rule only applicable to spouses and/or certain relatives, she was not disclosing Mr. Roberts’s financial interests as is required of Members who are legally married,” the committee wrote.
Indeed, the financial affairs of the man Ocasio-Cortez sometimes calls her “spouse” are a mystery. It’s unclear if or where Roberts is employed, if he owns any business entities, his debts, his assets, or if he buys or trades stocks in companies that fall under Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional jurisdiction—information that the spouses of her legally-married colleagues disclose to the public every year.
Federal laws that require the spouses of lawmakers to disclose their financial affairs to the public exist to prevent congressional spouses from profiting from their partner’s position in Congress or from being used as a pass-through to influence legislation. Other spousal restrictions could soon be implemented if Ocasio-Cortez has her way and passes her Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, which would ban congressional spouses from buying or selling stocks. It’s a severe restriction that would apply to every congressional spouse with one notable exception: her own.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office has not returned numerous requests for comment asking if Roberts participates in the stock market, nor has she acknowledged that her “spouse” would be exempt from her own proposed legislation to ban the spouses of her colleagues from trading stocks, so long as they never legally marry.
Kendra Arnold, the executive director of the nonpartisan ethics watchdog Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, said the committee’s rebuke of Ocasio-Cortez’s dual-use of the term “spouse” leads her to question whether the New York lawmaker or Roberts have something to hide.
“It is fair to question her inconsistent treatment of Roberts as her spouse, and specifically whether this is in an attempt to not disclose financial information,” Arnold told the Free Beacon.
The House Ethics Committee, which declined to comment, didn’t accept Ocasio-Cortez’s dual-use of the term “spouse” and ordered her to donate $250 to the charity that operates the Met Gala to reimburse the cost of Roberts’s meal at the 2021 event.
“Representative Ocasio-Cortez impermissibly accepted a gift of free admission to the 2021 Met Gala for Mr. Roberts, even if she was acting on the advice of her counsel,” the committee wrote.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the senior government affairs manager at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, said Ocasio-Cortez isn’t living up to her promise to act consistently with her ethical requirements as a member of the House.
“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. It’s a duck,” Hedtler-Gaudette told the Free Beacon. “In this case, it sounds like for all intents and purposes, Roberts is Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s spouse.”
“She wants to take advantage of the perks of Roberts being a congressional spouse when it’s convenient,” the watchdog added. “They should also comply with the less convenient parts of being a congressional spouse, including financial disclosures.”
As for Paul Kamenar, an attorney with the conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center, he said he was insulted by the notion from Ocasio-Cortez’s attorney that she didn’t want to bring the “law or religion” into her relationship with Roberts.
“It’s an affront to Members of Congress who are legally married and abide by the disclosure rules,” Kamenar said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not return a request for comment.
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