Questions over Rubio’s use of the card for personal expenses have dogged his presidential campaign, even as the U.S. senator for Florida has risen in the polls on the back of strong performances in the Republican primary debates.
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The NY Times on Wednesday wrote its own story on the matter under the headline “Marco Rubio Confronts New Scrutiny Over Use of Party Credit Card”. He also allegedly double-billed for plane tickets.
The vast majority of the newly-released charges involve expenses like travel and meals – ranging from Cuban chain La Carreta in Miami to swanky Tao in NY – which were legitimate party expenses, according to the campaign, and which Harris called “totally in line with the kind of thing political committees” and campaigns spend money on. Now that he’s running for president, they’ve become discredited attacks? His campaign said he spent a total of about $182,000, including more than $22,000 for 73 separate personal charges, during the almost four years he carried the charge card. That story said there is still a period of time between 2005 and 2006 for which Rubio has not released charge card statements. “If that’s the campaign he wants to run he’s entitled to it, but I’m going to continue to talk about the future of American, that’s why I ran for President”.
Critics are demanding the release of credit card statements for the GOP candidate after details about questionable charges were released in the Tampa Bay Times.
It’s quite possible that he will weather this storm, and though it’s hard to see Rubio’s path through the early voting states of New Hampshire, Iowa, and SC to the nomination, on paper he does look like the most logical GOP presidential nominee. “And we have nothing to hide”.
“It’s been coming up for five years, it’s not a new issue”, Rubio said Wednesday in New Hampshire.
“We all loved how Marco Rubio took apart Jeb Bush in the debate. The prosecutor for the commission found that the ‘level of negligence; exhibited by Rubio in confusing his cards, and then approving the reimbursement requests without recognizing the error, was ‘disturbing.’ But the prosecutor did not find probable cause for an intentional wrongful act”. Back in June, the NY Times detailed his many personal financial missteps at length: a brush with foreclosure on a second home in 2010 after being late with mortgage payments; his 2012 decision to spend part of a $800,000 book advance on a boat rather than paying down his considerable debts; his 2014 liquidation of a retirement account that prompted a hefty tax penalty; and the 2015 selling of his second home for $18,000 less than he and his friend paid for it a decade ago, to name a few.
And many of us can’t balance a checkbook and often live above our means.
His problem is the perception of deception.
In fact, Rubio made the distinction between a credit card and his American Express, which he said was a charge card, implying that it was paid every month. “A charge card, you have to pay off at the end of the month”.
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There are lessons to be learned from all of our experiences. Given Rubio’s penchant for blaming the media, Democrats, his opponents and anyone or anything else he can think of, it doesn’t appear as if he’s gotten the lesson.
