Update: Nicole Gelinas of the New York Post explains why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attending the Met Gala (in her borrowed “Tax The Rich” designer gown) has drawn the scrutiny of the House Ethics Committee and was not simply, as AOC claims, a typical example of an elected official supporting a local cultural institution.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/05/aoc-begged-to-go-to-met-gala-even-if-it-meant-breaking-the-rules/

According to Ms. Gelinas. AOC really wanted two $35,000 apiece tickets comped for her and her boyfriend, and she and a campaign staffer prodded Vogue editor Anna Wintour to invite her as guests. Ordinarily, they don’t invite politicians, and the Met isn’t even in AOC’s district. Plus, AOC’s anti-corruption lawyer had warned her staff that she could accept a ticket from the Met, but not from Vogue, which is owned by a big media company that has interests overseen by Congress. Plus, when reporters started asking whether AOC was a guest of Vogue or Wintour personally, internal emails suggest that Vogue staffers were frantically trying to find a way to obscure Vogue’s role.

Finally, while AOC claims she paid or repaid all the expenses, she didn’t do that for months until it threatened to become a scandal. Even then, she lowballed some of them, for instance, having her campaign staffers talk the gown designer down from a $1300 rental fee to $300. As Ms.Gelinas points out about our fashionista socialist champion of working people, “That’s how much AOC values weeks worth of labor.”

At least, AOC did get what she wished for: she not only attended the Met Gala, she also made herself very taxing to a lot of rich people.