Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's campaign paid a Boston psychiatrist known for ketamine-based therapy $18,725 across three payments last year, listing the expenses as "leadership training and consulting" in federal filings that have drawn sharp criticism from a campaign finance watchdog.
The payments went to Dr. Bryan Boyle, chief psychiatric officer at Stella, a chain of clinics offering ketamine infusion therapy and other treatments. Breitbart reported that Federal Election Commission records show the Bronx Democrat's campaign paid Boyle $11,550 in March 2025, another $2,800 in May, and $4,375 in October.
Neither Boyle nor Ocasio-Cortez's campaign responded to requests for comment from the New York Post, which first examined the federal records. What the sessions consisted of, and who participated, remains unclear.
Boyle is a Harvard-trained MD. His Psychology Today profile says Stella has treated more than 30,000 people at more than 20 locations. The clinic offers ketamine infusion therapy, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and FDA-approved esketamine. Boyle himself describes his practice's protocols as "innovative, effective and transformative, allowing people to feel better faster and maintain long lasting gains."
None of that sounds like political consulting. And that gap between the FEC label and the provider's actual credentials is exactly what caught the eye of the National Legal and Policy Center.
Paul Kamenar, counsel to the center, told the Post the spending appears to cross a legal line. His assessment was blunt:
"While I can understand why AOC would spend $18,000 for a shrink whose specialties include narcissistic personality disorders, using her campaign contributions for what appears to be an expense for personal use violates federal campaign finance laws."
Kamenar added that Boyle "has no expertise" in leadership training, "unlike several Democratic campaign consultants." He called the payments "yet another example of misuse of campaign contributions."
Federal law prohibits candidates from converting campaign funds to personal use. The FEC has not announced any formal finding on these payments, and no enforcement action has been reported. But the watchdog's complaint rests on a simple question: Why is a campaign writing five-figure checks to a psychiatrist and calling it consulting?
The spending raises eyebrows in part because of Ocasio-Cortez's well-documented interest in psychedelic medicine. She has proposed legislation three times to make it easier to study psychedelics such as psilocybin, commonly known as "magic mushrooms", for treating mental illness. In 2023, she cosponsored a bill led by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) to research psychedelics for PTSD and traumatic brain injury in active-duty service members. That legislation was signed into law.
At a 2019 town hall, Ocasio-Cortez made her position plain:
"There are certain schedule-1 drugs that are shown to offer a normal amount of promise to veterans and people with PTSD and also people struggling with depression and opioid addiction."
The bipartisan Crenshaw bill focused on supervised clinical research for veterans, a cause with genuine support on the right. But there is a wide distance between backing controlled research for wounded warriors and routing campaign dollars to a private psychiatrist whose clinic specializes in ketamine therapy.
Ketamine infusion therapy has gained traction in clinical settings for treatment-resistant depression. Ketamine Clinics of Los Angeles, for instance, boasts an 83 percent success rate using a series of six one-hour-long treatments in its medically staffed facility. The FDA has approved esketamine, a related compound, for certain depression diagnoses.
But the drug also generated grim headlines when it was linked to actor Matthew Perry's death. Perry had been abusing ketamine at home rather than receiving supervised clinical treatment, a distinction that matters medically but did nothing to quiet public concern about the substance's risks.
The broader question here isn't whether ketamine therapy has legitimate medical applications. It does, under proper supervision. The question is whether a sitting member of Congress can label payments to a psychiatrist known for hallucinogenic-adjacent treatments as "leadership training" and expect no one to look twice.
Campaign finance disclosures exist for a reason. Donors give money to elect a candidate, not to fund personal services dressed up in vague line items. When a campaign pays nearly $19,000 to a doctor and calls it consulting, voters deserve an explanation. They haven't gotten one. Ocasio-Cortez's team stayed silent when the Post came asking. Boyle said nothing either.
That silence is a choice, and a familiar one. Ocasio-Cortez, whose broader political positioning has drawn increasing scrutiny, has built a brand on transparency and accountability for the powerful. She has made a career of demanding that corporations, billionaires, and Republican officials explain every dollar. The standard she sets for others ought to apply to her own campaign books.
Kamenar's criticism lands hard precisely because the facts are so simple. Boyle is a psychiatrist, not a leadership coach. His clinic administers ketamine, not strategic advice. The FEC filings say "leadership training and consulting." Nobody with a straight face has explained how those two things connect.
This isn't the first time Ocasio-Cortez has found herself at the center of pointed public questioning. But campaign finance law doesn't bend for media-savvy politicians any more than it does for anyone else. If the payments were legitimate consulting, say so and show the receipts. If they were something else, donors and voters have a right to know what their money bought.
When politicians demand transparency from everyone but themselves, the word for that isn't leadership. It's the oldest trick in Washington.
