Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an American Democratic politician who has represented New York's 14th congressional district in the U.S. House since January 2019. One of the most prominent progressive members of Congress, she served on the House Oversight Committee, where she questioned witnesses at its first major hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena in 2023. In 2026 she spoke in favor of UAP disclosure while expressing skepticism about the Pentagon's first public file releases.

Born in the Bronx in 1989, Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Boston University in 2011 with degrees in international relations and economics. She worked as a bartender and waitress and as an organizer for Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign, then defeated ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the June 2018 Democratic primary and won the general election that November. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she rose to vice ranking member of the Oversight Committee, lost a December 2024 bid to become its top Democrat, and moved to the Energy and Commerce Committee in January 2025.

At the 2023 House Oversight UAP Hearing on July 26, 2023, Ocasio-Cortez opened by noting that the panel was "a committee for whistleblowers." She confirmed with David Grusch that he had served on the UAP Task Force, then asked whether defense contractors had any duty to report UAP sightings; Grusch said he was not aware of one. She asked Ryan Graves about the lack of a formal Federal Aviation Administration process for pilot reports and what data AARO should prioritize. She also asked Grusch, "If you were me, where would you look? Titles, programs, departments, regions," and he replied that he would be happy to answer in a closed environment.

Her 2026 remarks came as the Trump administration began releasing records. In a clip from The Alicia Powe Show that circulated on May 20, she said, "I think it's a really important issue," adding that the more specific requesters were about "the areas, departments, and things that we would like to see disclosed," the easier the information would be to obtain. Speaking to Ask a Pol UAP in early June, she compared the first releases to the initial Epstein files, which she said were "like binders with nothing in them." On June 25, asked whether she had looked at the files, she said she had not yet and that since moving off Oversight it had become harder to see classified material: "when you try to see them for yourself, they give you a hard time."

Ocasio-Cortez is one of the few nationally prominent progressive Democrats to have engaged with UAP oversight on the record. Her 2023 questions about contractor reporting and where Congress might look anticipated lines of inquiry that later dominated the issue, and her 2026 comments showed how a change of committee assignment can limit a lawmaker's access to the classified material at the center of the disclosure debate.