{"id":182028,"date":"2016-01-14T23:36:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T04:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/01\/14\/bought-and-paid-for-by-the-vampire-squid\/"},"modified":"2016-01-14T23:36:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T04:36:00","slug":"bought-and-paid-for-by-the-vampire-squid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/01\/14\/bought-and-paid-for-by-the-vampire-squid\/","title":{"rendered":"Bought and Paid for by the Vampire Squid"},"content":{"rendered":"
It appears that during his first campaign for the Texas Senate, Ted Cruz got a million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs, and then in contravention of campaign finance laws, did not report it to the Federal Election Commission<\/a>:<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


As Ted Cruz<\/a> tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweetheart, I\u2019d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,\u201d he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.<\/p>\n

But the couple\u2019s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz\u2019s successful Tea Party<\/a>-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports.<\/p>\n

Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican<\/a> primary, Mr. Cruz \u2014 currently a leading contender for his party\u2019s presidential nomination \u2014 put \u201cpersonal funds\u201d totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million \u2014 \u201cwhich is all we had saved,\u201d as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign. What it does show, however, is that in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose.<\/p>\n

Neither loan appears in reports the Ted Cruz<\/a> for Senate Committee filed with the Federal Election Commission<\/a>, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns. Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders. There is no evidence that the Cruzes got a break on their loans.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He should take a hit for this, particularly because much of his personal story is about how he risked it all to run for the US Senate, but it won’t make a difference in the primaries, because the Republican Party base has drunk too much Flint municipal tap water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that during his first campaign for the Texas Senate, Ted Cruz got a million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs, and then in contravention of campaign finance laws, did not report it to the Federal Election Commission: As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1094,970,969,1004,977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-finance","category-corruption","category-evil","category-finance","category-presidential-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}