AOC to Serve as No. 2 Democrat on House Oversight Committee

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks on banning stock trades for members of Congress at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 07, 2022. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is now one of the top two Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Selected on Jan. 30 to serve as the panel’s new vice ranking member, she will be second in power to Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) among the Democrat members.

Sharing the news on Jan. 30 with her Twitter followers, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “Excited and humbled to share that this evening I was selected to serve as @RepRaskin’s #2 on the House Oversight Committee. Thank you to my colleagues on @OversightDems for entrusting me with this responsibility. I’m thrilled to get to work with our incredible Oversight team!”

The congresswoman served on the committee in the last Congress under Democrat leadership, as well as the House Committee on Financial Services and the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.

In December, the House Ethics Committee announced that Ocasio-Cortez was under investigation for ethics violations, but did not specify what those alleged violations were.

Meanwhile, Raskin formerly led the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He also served as the lead House impeachment manager during the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump and was a member of the Jan. 6 Committee.

In December, the congressman was elected ranking member of the Oversight Committee by his fellow party members in a closed-door election against Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).

“I look forward to championing our Democratic priorities on the House’s lead investigative committee and drawing on the remarkable talents and voices of our Democratic Members,” Raskin said in s Dec. 22 statement.

However, speaking Monday at a National Press Club Headliners Newsmaker event, Republican Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said he planned to steer the panel’s investigative efforts in a new direction that Democrats are unlikely to agree with—the Biden family’s alleged “influence peddling.”

“The family has taken millions of dollars from adversaries mainly in China,” Comer said. “I think we need to determine what the money was for and who supplied it.”

Noting that members of President Joe Biden’s family have cumulatively received at least 150 suspicious activity reports relating to their financial transactions, he added: “When you see the country [China] has donated so much money to the Biden family, shouldn’t someone look into that to make sure that everything’s in order? That’s what we are doing.”

Other matters Comer has pledged to investigate include the unsecured classified documents discovered in the president’s possession, the origins of COVID-19, pandemic relief spending, and the crisis at the southern border.