Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) chief of staff has become a lightning rod within the caucus for his Twitter attacks on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other members of the party.
In recent weeks, Saikat Chakrabarti has tweeted messages suggesting Pelosi is an ineffective legislator, that a Native American lawmaker voted “to enable a racist system” and that moderate Democrats are modern-day segregationists because they backed a Senate border aid bill.
It’s all put additional pressure on Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has taken Congress by storm.
“That’s just a terrible statement to make. That’s a terrible statement to make,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), a Congressional Black Caucus member, said of Chakrabarti’s segregationists tweets. “Somebody’s got to be held accountable. If my staff did something that was not right, then I have to handle my staff.”
“The question is: Do you think it’s appropriate for your staff to say something like that?” added Meeks, who in recent days has threatened to back a primary challenger against Ocasio-Cortez.
The extraordinary nature of Chakrabarti’s internecine barbs prompted an unprecedented counterattack on Friday by Democratic leaders, highlighting the extent to which the 33-year-old liberal activist has gotten under the skin of his boss’s colleagues.
It is highly unusual for a Democratic aide to attack Democratic lawmakers by name on social media, but Chakrabarti isn’t your traditional aide. He’s a Harvard alum and tech entrepreneur who left Silicon Valley to focus on progressive activism, helped recruit Ocasio-Cortez to Congress as a leader of the insurgent group Justice Democrats and is now emerging as a political celebrity in his own right.
Chakrabarti’s outspoken style — combined with his history fighting to topple incumbent Democrats deemed too conservative to bear the party brand — has made him a target of fierce new scrutiny while raising questions about his longevity on Capitol Hill.
“Do I think AOC’s chief of staff needs to be fired? Of course I do,” said a moderate Democratic lawmaker. “Who is in charge in that office? Is she unable to fire him for his racist comments?”
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The Democratic aide echoed the moderate lawmaker, suggesting that Chakrabarti has not been reprimanded by Ocasio-Cortez because he and his group, Justice Democrats, helped propel the former New York bartender to victory last year and he’s the one pulling the strings in her office.
“I have never seen a staffer insult multiple members multiple times and keep his job. It’s unheard of,” the aide added.
Chakrabarti has never been known to pull punches, but he gained a new notoriety in recent weeks as Democrats were squabbling over the Senate’s $4.6 billion border funding bill, which liberals opposed because it lacked provisions explicitly designed to protect migrant children being detained by federal authorities.
Taking to Twitter, Chakrabarti (56,000 followers) accused the moderate Democrats supporting the Senate bill of seeming “hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s.” He quickly deleted the tweet, but not before it had reverberated across Capitol Hill, angering Democrats of all ideological stripes.
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Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff emerges as lightning rod during Democratic feud https://t.co/rC8fJXuptz pic.twitter.com/oBzbheDdcr
— The Hill (@thehill) July 16, 2019
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