Ocasio-Cortez Chief of Staff Would 'Welcome' Amazon's Return to NYC, with 'Input'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) Chief of Staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, claimed they would “welcome having a process” to bring Amazon back to New York City, but only with community input.

“The deal was sprung on the community without any input and there’s a real cost whenever tech companies come in without community input. Rents go up, people get evicted, there’s an actual human cost,” explained Chakrabarti in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’d welcome having a process, yes… but I don’t know where the talks are at this stage.”

“If we can do it through a community process and there’s a way for the community to actually engage and make their demands heard, I think that would have been a better way to have done that,” he continued.

This month, Chakrabarti has faced controversy after an FEC complaint accused Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti of “using two PACs and LLCs to hide hundreds of thousands in campaign dollars.”

“A Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) filed Monday accused Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti of using two PACs (Political Action Committees) he founded to funnel around $1 million to two of his private companies,” reported Breitbart News’ Michelle Moons, Monday, who added that the “companies may have been used to hide what funds were spent on.”

Ocasio-Cortez was one of the most prominent public figure to oppose Amazon’s plans to build part of its second headquarters in New York City, before the company pulled out in February due to heavy criticism.

Following Amazon’s withdrawal, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated, claiming New Yorkers had “defeated Amazon’s corporate greed.”

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” she posted on Twitter, receiving over 55,000 likes.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NY), Rep. Peter King (R-NY), and the Job Creators Network blamed Ocasio-Cortez for Amazon’s withdrawal.

“I’ll take on any progressive anywhere that thinks it’s a good idea to lose jobs and revenue because I think that’s out of touch with what working people want,” de Blasio claimed. “Working people are very smart and very discerning. They want jobs, they want revenue, they want the kinds of things that government can do for them… They understand they have to be paid for.”

The Job Creators Network even displayed a billboard in Times Square, declaring, “Thanks for nothing, AOC!”