As Congress debates a ban on TikTok, AOC is doing what she does best: carrying water for Chinese communists with vapid social media posts.

The socialist lawmaker hasn't mentioned in her rambling defenses of TikTok that she has a conflict of interest in the matter.

The Chinese-owned parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, donated $150,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, a nonprofit with which AOC is affiliated.

Conflict of interest

AOC sits on the group's advisory board and is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

ByteDance also donated $150,000 to a nonprofit tied to the Congressional Black Caucus, which is also dominated by Democrats.

The donations were made in December, the same month that Congress and President Biden banned TikTok on government devices.

"It's a matter of deep concern, it's a conflict of interest for her to be shilling for TikTok at the same time that the company is bankrolling entities with which she's affiliated," Peter Flaherty, CEO of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative ethics group, told the Washington Examiner.

AOC protests ban

Ocasio-Cortez recently made her first TikTok to defend the app from an "unprecedented" ban being weighed in Congress.

AOC called the proposal overly broad and premature, saying Congress has yet to receive a national security briefing on the issue.

The problem isn't TikTok, but an industry-wide lack of privacy protections for social media users, she said.

“I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be. The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders,” she said. “And this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it."

Useful idiot?

While many would argue TikTok is dumbing down and indoctrinating young people -- AOC being living proof -- lawmakers in both parties and the White House have targeted the popular app as a threat to national security. TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress on Thursday.

AOC's flippant attitude toward Chinese subterfuge is no surprise -- after all, this is the same person who just last month dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as "half fake."

The laptop is now widely accepted as legitimate, although few in the media acknowledge the evidence on it that Joe Biden is compromised by China's ruling elites.