A conservative watchdog filed a federal complaint alleging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used nearly $19,000 in campaign funds to pay a Boston psychiatrist, then disguised the spending on disclosure forms as "leadership training and consulting."
The National Legal and Policy Center lodged its complaint on March 27 with the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Conduct. It names Ocasio-Cortez, her campaign committee, and its treasurer, and asks both agencies to open immediate investigations and impose penalties.
At the center of the filing: three payments made in 2025 to Dr. Brian W. Boyle, an interventional psychiatrist. The amounts, $11,550 on March 10, $2,800 on May 15, and $4,375 on October 1, total $18,725. Every one was logged on campaign finance disclosures under the bland heading "Leadership Training and Consulting." The complaint says that label is false.
NLPC counsel Paul Kamenar wrote the filing and did not mince words. As Fox News Digital reported, Kamenar's complaint contends that Boyle, described as a leading authority on ketamine therapy, has no advertised background in leadership training or political consulting.
"NLPC alleges that AOC's expenditure of almost $19,000 of campaign funds in 2025 to psychiatrist Dr. Brian W. Boyle ostensibly for 'leadership training and consulting' was expended instead for personal psychiatric services provided to AOC or members of her campaign staff."
The complaint goes further. Kamenar wrote that "those expenses were also misreported by the campaign committee with the FEC." If the spending was really for therapy or psychiatric treatment, it would represent a prohibited personal use of donor money under federal election law, and the filings that called it something else would be fraudulent.
On pages five through seven, the filing quotes FEC and House standards requiring campaign expenditures to be both bona fide and verifiable. The legal test it raises is simple: would this expense exist regardless of whether Ocasio-Cortez were a candidate? If the answer is yes, the money should never have come from a campaign account.
Dr. Boyle practices in Boston. The New York Post reported that Boyle is known for his work in interventional psychiatry, including ketamine-based treatments. Nowhere in his public profile does he advertise leadership training or consulting services to political candidates or campaigns.
That gap between what Boyle does and what the campaign said it was paying for sits at the heart of the NLPC's case. Kamenar put it bluntly in the filing:
"There is reason to believe that AOC's use of campaign funds to pay for a psychiatrist who has no experience in 'leadership training' was not for a 'bona fide campaign or political purpose,' but rather for personal psychiatric therapy for AOC or her campaign staff."
Ocasio-Cortez has spoken publicly about receiving therapy. In a 2021 interview with People, she said, "Oh yeah, I'm doing therapy but also I've just slowed down." Nobody begrudges a member of Congress for seeking mental health care. But federal law draws a bright line: you pay for personal services with personal money, not with funds donated by supporters for campaign purposes.
The congresswoman's office and campaign have not responded to requests for comment from Fox News. That silence may be tactical, but it does nothing to resolve the questions the complaint raises.
Calls for transparency from public officials cut across party lines. When campaign disclosures use vague or misleading labels, voters lose the ability to hold their representatives accountable for how donor dollars get spent.
This is not the first time Ocasio-Cortez has drawn scrutiny over her use of campaign resources. And the timing of the complaint lands amid a stretch where she has attracted attention on multiple fronts, including sharp criticism from fellow Democrats over her legislative proposals.
The NLPC, for its part, has a track record of filing ethics complaints against members of both parties, though it has focused heavily on Democratic officeholders in recent years. The group asked both the FEC and OCC to "immediately investigate the facts and circumstances of these payments and impose appropriate penalties and disciplinary sanctions against AOC."
Whether those agencies act remains to be seen. The FEC is notoriously slow, often deadlocked along partisan lines, and rarely moves quickly on individual complaints. The OCC, the renamed House Ethics Committee, has its own history of letting cases languish.
One detail adds an unusual wrinkle. Fox News noted that Boyle's psychiatric practice includes ketamine therapy, a treatment that has gained attention after the death of "Friends" star Matthew Perry. Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance approved for certain psychiatric uses under medical supervision, but it remains controversial.
Ocasio-Cortez herself waded into drug-scheduling debates during a House Health Subcommittee hearing last week. She argued that increasing Schedule I prohibitions and criminal penalties had not slowed overdoses, claiming they had "doubled" in Florida. She also pushed for reclassifying certain substances to allow more research into treatments for PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
"Right now our law says these drugs have zero medical application but the science says something else," she said at the hearing.
Those remarks are her prerogative as a legislator. But they take on a different flavor when a federal complaint simultaneously alleges her campaign was routing donor money to a psychiatrist who specializes in exactly that kind of treatment, and calling it something else on the paperwork.
The complaint asks for investigation, penalties, and reimbursement. If the FEC finds the payments were personal in nature, Ocasio-Cortez could be required to repay her campaign account and face fines. The OCC could pursue disciplinary sanctions.
None of that has happened yet. The NLPC has laid out its case. The congresswoman has said nothing. The agencies have not publicly acknowledged the filing.
But the core question is straightforward. A psychiatrist got paid $18,725 from a campaign account. The campaign called it leadership training. The psychiatrist does not appear to offer leadership training. Somebody owes donors an explanation.
Campaign treasuries are not personal piggy banks. If the law means anything, it means that, no matter how many followers you have on Instagram.
