Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has built her brand on attacking the rich and powerful.
Now she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
And AOC looks like a turkey after she was busted for this Thanksgiving scam.
The Thanksgiving con that even other Democrats won't touch
For years, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handed out turkeys to her Bronx constituents every Thanksgiving in what became an annual photo opportunity.
The socialist Congresswoman would post pictures on Instagram showing her distributing birds to grateful families while building her political brand as someone who "cares about the community."
But this year AOC cooked up a brand new scheme that has ethics watchdogs crying foul.
Instead of directing supporters to donate to the local charities actually organizing the turkey drives – like she did in 2021 when she raised $33,589.64 for three organizations – Ocasio-Cortez changed the game.¹
Now when donors click the contribution link in her email appeals, they land on her campaign fundraising page operated by ActBlue where they're prompted to make recurring monthly donations.
The fine print reveals donations go to "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress" and aren't deductible as charitable contributions.
Translation: AOC just used Thanksgiving to fund her future 2028 Presidential campaign.
Former City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli didn't mince words about what AOC is pulling.
"A campaign is not supposed to be a pass-through for charitable work," Borelli told the New York 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?"²
He called it "a clear case of why a campaign is not a charitable organization."
City Councilman Robert Holden ripped into AOC's socialist hypocrisy even harder.
"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," Holden stated. "It is a typical bait and switch, pretending to be for the people while quietly pillaging them for every dollar they can get."³
Here's the kicker: The Post reviewed turkey drives from more than a dozen New York City politicians and found only two used campaign funds for their giveaways.
One was AOC. The other was U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who has faced numerous ethics complaints over the years and has a reputation for being one of the most corrupt members of Congress.
Every other politician coordinated directly between local charities, community groups, or grocery stores to get turkeys to families in need.
Even AOC's fellow Democrats think using campaign cash for turkey drives crosses the line.
The numbers don't add up and nobody can verify the truth
Federal Election Commission data shows AOC's campaign made a $13,101 purchase at Westside Foods in the Bronx three days before Thanksgiving 2024.⁴
But her own public statements about how many turkeys she distributed don't add up.
In this year's email pitch, AOC claimed she handed out 600 turkeys in 2024.
But in her campaign video from that same year, the number jumped to 1,000 birds.
On Saturday, she bragged on Instagram about providing "over 1,600 turkeys" this year while raising an additional $20,000 "above our raise goal."
Wait – so which is it? 600 turkeys, 1,000 turkeys, or 1,600 turkeys?
Nobody can verify any of these numbers because the FEC doesn't require campaigns to disclose how money raised through solicitations gets spent.
Paul Kamenar of the National Legal and Policy Center called it a "shady deal she's cooking up here."
"It appears that AOC's turkey giveaway project may be a fraudulent scheme to solicit donations for her campaign," Kamenar explained. "Clearly, a full investigation and audit need to be conducted."⁵
AOC's campaign manager refused to explain why they changed from directing donations straight to charities to funneling money through the campaign.
This is AOC's signature move and she's done it before
Look, this is who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez really is.
The woman who spent years screaming about billionaires exploiting workers just got caught exploiting people's charitable impulses to build her 2028 Presidential war chest.
And this isn't the first time she's pulled this exact playbook.
Remember the Met Gala scandal? AOC showed up in a designer dress with "Tax the Rich" splashed across the back while accepting tens of thousands of dollars in free gifts – the dress, jewelry, hair, makeup, transportation.⁶
She only paid for it after the House Ethics Committee started investigating.
Before that, her chief of staff got hit with campaign finance complaints for allegedly funneling nearly $900,000 in PAC contributions through private companies to hide where the money went.⁷
The pattern is crystal clear: Use a good cause as cover, funnel money through her operation, claim it's all legitimate, then scramble to clean it up only when investigators come knocking.
Except this time she's not even bothering to hide it. She's openly directing "charity" donations straight into her campaign account and banking on voters being too trusting to notice.
AOC has raised over $37 million for her campaign committee since 2019, making her one of the Democrat Party's most prolific fundraisers.⁸
She raised another $11.1 million for nonfederal candidates and causes.
For someone who lectures America about wealth inequality and the evils of capitalism, Ocasio-Cortez sure knows how to work the system.
She's not building a House reelection fund – she represents one of the safest Democrat districts in America.
She's building a Presidential campaign infrastructure. And she's doing it by tricking donors who think they're feeding hungry families into funding her political machine instead.
Republican National Committee spokesperson Kiersten Pels nailed exactly what's happening here.
"Ocasio-Cortez is running a con under the guise of a charity drive," Pels stated. "Slapping a 'turkey' label on a campaign fundraiser to trick voters into thinking they're helping charities is exactly the kind of scam that she and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party rely on."⁹
This Thanksgiving, the biggest turkey in America isn't sitting on anyone's dinner table.
She's sitting in Congress representing New York's 14th District while scheming about how to scam her way into the White House.
¹ Geoff Earle and Gabrielle Fahmy, "AOC email seeks donations for turkey giveaway — but money goes straight to her campaign coffers," New York Post, November 22, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Julia Marsh, "AOC Under Investigation for Possible Violations Tied to Met Gala," NBC New York, March 3, 2023.
⁷ Dan Backer, "Ocasio-Cortez, chief of staff illegally moved $885G in campaign contributions 'off the books,' FEC complaint alleges," Fox News, March 6, 2019.
⁸ Shane Goldmacher, "Almost immediately after her election, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez became the face of a small cohort of progressives," The New York Times, April 2024.
⁹ Geoff Earle and Gabrielle Fahmy, "AOC email seeks donations for turkey giveaway — but money goes straight to her campaign coffers," New York Post, November 22, 2025.
