He spent too lavishly and frivolously, and used his party card for personal business. During that time, he used a charge card issued by the state GOP party for personal expenses. He also earned $52,000 from royalties on his books and a teaching position, plus about $5,000 from rental properties.
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I said early on that Rubio was in a first tier of contenders with Jeb Bush and, before he dropped out, Scott Walker. “Those credit card statements are an internal party matter”, Rubio told the editorial board of the Times-Union of Jacksonville in September 2010.
Rubio dismissed the charges as old news and said he did nothing wrong.
“He didn’t have carte blanche, (but) he had an America Express card”, he laughed.
“Any personal charges were paid by me directly”.
Though his poll numbers have not been damaged by such attacks, Rubio’s opponents on both the left and right are seeking to make hay of the issue, even as the senator’s aides have long maintained he had “nothing to hide”. “And just past year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That’s something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties”, said CNBC’s Becky Quick. “It didn’t work then and it won’t work now”.
The young politician’s credit card history, which became a point of contention during his 2010 U.S. Senate run, re-emerged as he has distinguished himself as a leading prospect for his party’s nod.
“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 ethics commission advocate wrote. He had charged items such as grocery bills, plane tickets for his wife and repairs to the family minivan to the card. Nine years later, there remains no evidence that he paid for them immediately. Charlie Crist, with leaking the documents to the newspapers. The Washington Post fact-checker recently examined the claims and counter-claims, concluding that Rubio’s explanation checked out and declaring, “a mountain’s been made of a molehill, by the media and Rubio’s opponents”.
The pro-Rubio group, Conservative Solutions Project, has engaged in “excessive campaign activity on Senator Rubio’s behalf”, that may violate federal tax law for social-welfare organizations, which are supposed to serve broader community purposes, Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center said in a letter Thursday to the Justice Department. The ban prevents lawmakers from taking gifts from lobbyists, but the state party doesn’t face the same restrictions.
The statements obtained by ABC News do show one of the statements being sent to his home in Miami, but the others were sent to the Republican Party of Florida’s address in Tallahassee.
Rubio, though, is finding that questions about his money management skills are not going away now that he’s surged to the front of the establishment lane for his party’s nomination. His campaign insists Rubio has reimbursed American Express for the purchases.
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Marco Rubio let go on Saturday more of his credit card statements, in an conspicuous try and curtail continued questions & criticism about his personal finances.
