AOC’s First Purge

Less than a year on the job, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just had her first purge. AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, and spokesman, Corbin Trent, announced their resignations Friday. They were two of the top leaders at Justice Democrats, the lefty outfit that recruited her to run in the first place, basically ran her campaign and proceeded to dominate her DC office.

Trent is moving to her 2020 re-election campaign . . . more than 10 months before the primary. Chakrabarti is headed to New Consensus, a nonprofit focused on climate issues — which sounds a lot like the old barely face-saving “to pursue other career opportunities” shtick.

Officially, the moves were long-planned. More likely, AOC sacrificed both hotheads to appease Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti’s venomous tweets slamming other

Democrats were the trigger for last month’s tiff between the speaker and The Squad.

Or perhaps they’re clearing out before a legal storm: The feds are looking into possible campaign corruption involving two Chakrabarti-run PACs, Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats.

Between them, according to Federal Election Commission filings, they funneled more than $1 million to two private companies incorporated and controlled by Chakrabarti — which looks like an effort to get around federal rules on reporting PAC spending and could also conceal illegally high contributions to a single campaign. (The attorney for the PAC said the arrangement fully complies with the law.)

Ocasio-Cortez has probably avoided some major headaches here, but only time will tell if it was worth ditching advisers who got her where she is.