Ocasio-Cortez’s Campaign Expenditures Under Scrutiny
Last year, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign made payments totaling nearly $19,000 to a psychiatrist known for his work with ketamine, categorizing these as “leadership training and consulting.”
The campaign’s committee issued $18,725 in three separate payments to Dr. Brian Boyle during 2025. Federal Election Commission records indicate these payments were $11,550 in March, $2,800 in May, and $4,375 in October.
Dr. Boyle serves as the chief psychiatrist at Stellar, a mental health clinic chain operating over 20 locations. His credentials include training at Harvard Medical School and nearly a decade spent at McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Stellar provides various therapies, including ketamine-assisted treatment, Sprabat (an FDA-approved esketamine nasal spray), and transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Federal law typically prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal expenses. To navigate this, the FEC employs what’s referred to as an “irrelevance test,” which assesses whether certain obligations would exist independently of a candidate’s campaign or public duties.
Paul Kamenar from the National Law and Policy Center stated, as reported by the New York Post, that this spending seems to conflict with those guidelines. “She labels these costs as ‘leadership training,’ but unlike other Democratic consultants, Dr. Boyle lacks relevant expertise in that area,” Kamenar said. “It seems to be another instance of campaign fund misappropriation.”
This scrutiny comes amid ongoing questions regarding Ocasio-Cortez’s spending classifications. In March 2025, Americans for a Public Trust filed an ethics complaint concerning other expenses classified as “training.” Ocasio-Cortez has publicly dismissed these allegations as “100% false.”
Moreover, Ocasio-Cortez has advocated for broader research into psychedelic-assisted therapies. She co-sponsored a bipartisan initiative with Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw aimed at funding research within the Department of Defense on psychedelics for military personnel dealing with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. This legislation was included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024.
Dr. Simon Dosowitz cautioned about the potential risks associated with ketamine, describing it as “a powerful dissociative drug.”
