AOC Called It Leadership Training and Paid a Ketamine Psychiatrist $19,000 With Your Donations

March 24, 2026 Cat2, Politics
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AOC spent your campaign donations on a hallucinogenic drug specialist.

Now federal records show she paid him $18,725 across three payments and called it "leadership training."

The FEC has a specific name for exactly what this is – and it carries a five-year prison sentence.

AOC Paid a Ketamine Psychiatrist $19,000 in Campaign Funds and Called It Training

Dr. Brian Boyle is a Harvard-trained interventional psychiatrist and chief psychiatric officer at Stella, a mental health clinic chain with more than 20 locations nationwide.

Stella's flagship treatments include ketamine infusion therapy, esketamine nasal spray, and transcranial magnetic stimulation – the cutting-edge treatments favored by Hollywood and Wall Street types who want their depression gone fast.

Boyle is considered a leading authority on ketamine, the same powerful dissociative anesthetic that was linked to the death of Friends star Matthew Perry in 2023.

AOC's campaign paid Boyle $11,550 in March 2025, another $2,800 in May, and $4,375 in October – totaling $18,725 in Federal Election Commission records, according to the New York Post.

The listed purpose? "Leadership training and consulting."

Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, wasn't buying it.

"While she describes these expenses as 'leadership training,' Dr. Boyle has no expertise in that area, unlike several Democratic campaign consultants," Kamenar told the Post.

"This looks like yet another example of misuse of campaign contributions."

Boyle did not respond to the Post's request for comment.

AOC's campaign also did not respond.

The FEC Has a Name for Using Campaign Funds on Personal Expenses

Federal campaign finance law operates on what the FEC calls the "irrespective test."

The rule is straightforward: if you'd still have that expense even if you'd never run for office, it's personal – and paying for it with campaign donations is illegal.

Psychiatric treatment exists irrespective of a campaign.

The question isn't whether ketamine therapy is legitimate medicine – it is, when properly administered, an effective treatment for depression and PTSD.

The question is why AOC's campaign donors paid for it.

Criminal penalties for knowing and willful violations of campaign finance law can reach five years in federal prison – and the DOJ, not just the FEC, has jurisdiction to prosecute.

The NLPC – the same organization that has filed multiple previous complaints against AOC – is now calling for a federal investigation.

This is not the first time AOC has faced campaign finance scrutiny.

In 2022, the Washington Examiner reported her campaign and former chief of staff failed to properly disclose roughly $1 million in expenses.

In March 2025 – the same month she cut her first check to the ketamine doctor – Americans for Public Trust filed a separate ethics complaint over payments labeled as "training" that investigators couldn't find in FEC filings.

AOC called those accusations "100% wrong."

She said nothing about this one.

AOC Built Her Brand on Accountability and Refuses to Explain This

AOC built her brand on holding the powerful accountable.

She grilled bank CEOs in committee hearings.

She lectured corporations about paying their fair share.

She wore a "Tax the Rich" dress to the Met Gala and said it was a political statement.

And she once told a town hall that Schedule 1 drugs like psychedelics show real promise for veterans with PTSD and depression – describing the shift from criminal to medical framing as a matter of basic human dignity.

Fair enough.

But if psychiatric treatment belongs in the realm of personal medicine, it also belongs in the realm of personal expenses – not the campaign credit card.

The woman who positioned herself as the conscience of the Democrat Party apparently needed someone else to pay for her conscience therapy.

If she received ketamine infusions, her donors funded a hallucinogenic experience she labeled "leadership training."

If she didn't, she paid a psychiatrist with no background in political consulting nearly $19,000 for services she still refuses to explain.

Either way, the donors who gave AOC money to fight the billionaires deserve to know what they actually bought.

Sources:

  • Lowell Cauffiel, "AOC's Campaign Spent Nearly $19K on Psychiatrist Known for Hallucinogenic Therapy," Breitbart, March 22, 2026.
  • "AOC Spent $19,000 In Campaign Cash On A Psychiatrist," Daily Caller, March 21, 2026.
  • "AOC Used Campaign Funds for Psychiatric Treatment from Ketamine Doctor," National Legal and Policy Center, March 2026.
  • "AOC's Campaign and Ex-Chief of Staff Failed to Disclose $1 Million in Expenses," Washington Examiner, April 3, 2022.
  • "Personal Use of Campaign Funds," Federal Election Commission, fec.gov.