Former AOC Aide Who Pocketed Over 70% of Funds Raised by PAC He Launched Now Trying to Drum Up Cash in Effort to Oust Biden
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
A former aide to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pocketed over 70% of the funds he raised through a PAC that claimed it was working to pressure moderate Democrat Senators to end the filibuster – and he’s now got that same PAC soliciting funds again, this time to purportedly pressure President Joe Biden to step aside in the 2024 presidential race.
Corbin Trent worked on campaign communications for both Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), before a stint as Ocasio-Cortez’s first communications director after she was elected. He soon found a gig more lucrative than the taxpayer-funded congressional office salary, however: launching the “No Excuses PAC” in early 2021.
According to news reports at the time, the PAC’s goals were to pressure Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) to support abolishing the filibuster and thereby make it easier for Democrats to pass legislation, and barring that, support challengers for their seats.
Well, the filibuster remains, Manchin declined to run for re-election, and Sinema switched parties to independent – but it would be wildly delusional to credit any of that to No Excuses PAC. A report by The Daily Beast showed that the PAC spent a relative pittance (less than $15,000) on television ads attacking Sinema, but did manage to funnel about $140,000 to Trent himself, mostly in the form of $7,500 checks for “campaign management consulting” or “communications consulting.”
All together, more than 70 percent of the total money No Excuses PAC raised went directly into Trent’s pocket, an eyebrow-raising number.
The Beast article correctly noted that this isn’t illegal, and now it seems Trent is playing the same tune again.
No Excuses PAC recently dusted the mothballs off their dormant social media accounts to ask for donations to put an ad on TV and radio urging Biden to step aside and let other Democratic candidates have a primary battle to be his successor. The latest report from the Beast noted that the PAC had “a measly $1,552.51 remaining” in its account in October, according to FEC records, so Trent will have to work a little harder to get the PAC to support him once again in the manner to which he had become accustomed.
