Pretty much everyone in the country has trouble handling debt, and far too many people are carrying way too high a balance on their credit cards. In the previously unreleased period of January 2005 to October 2006, Rubio spent $64,777.82 on 484 charges. The credit-card attack is more threatening because it makes Rubio sounds like a business-as-usual self-interested shady politician in a cycle when that’s an especially bad rap to have. It described eight of those charges, totaling $7,244, as used for personal expenses. Nine years later, there remains no evidence that he paid for them immediately.
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As Marco Rubio’s stock rises among Republican primary voters, the Florida senator is trying to show that his finances are clean as a whistle. “The level of negligence exhibited by Respondent’s confusion between the (Republican Party of Florida) American Express card and his personal MasterCard, together with his failure to recognize the error when reviewing the months’ statements, and his signature on the reimbursement requests, is disturbing”, the commission’s prosecutor wrote. During the CNBC debate, Becky Quirk also raised Rubio’s previous issues with property foreclosure and the liquidation of one of his retirement accounts as potential evidence of his ineptitude when it comes to money.
“We’ll see what’s happening with Rubio”, front-runner Donald Trump said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Travel expenses for Rubio’s wife Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, including a $328.80 Delta Airlines flight from Washington, D.C.to Miami and $444.40 for a flight from Miami to Tallahassee and a $723.60 United Airlines ticket for Rubio’s wife from Miami to Denver to Aspen.
Bush’s poor performance in the last Republican presidential debate, combined with his declining poll numbers, has begun to shift sentiment in the Republican establishment.
Rubio was one of about a half-dozen lawmakers given RPOF cards during years when the party was flush with cash.
The decision to release the records highlights the enduring potency of a controversy rooted in Rubio’s days as a young state representative in Florida that he and his aides thought had been put to rest with his 2010 election to the Senate. Warren Tompkins, a South Carolina operative who is business partners with Rubio’s campaign manager, formed the nonprofit in 2014.
Bush and Rubio, a onetime protege of the former governor, draw from a similar pool of donors in Florida who have supported them both over the years. He had not released the remaining American Express statements until Saturday.
The 2005-06 charges ranged from small to large.
For his part, Rubio has told the press that the party “never paid a single personal expense of mine”, noting that since it was an American Express card, he was required to pay the balance of his personal charges back each month.
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Rubio, who has climbed in polls since last week’s Republican debate, now finds himself under renewed scrutiny over his use of a Republican party credit card for personal expenditures ten years ago.
