Nice to have friends in finance:
As Ted Cruz 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.
“Sweetheart, I’d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.
But the couple’s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz’s successful Tea Party-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.
Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz — currently a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination — put “personal funds” 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 — “which is all we had saved,” as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago.
Isn’t that something. Mrs. Cruz claims that the failure to disclose was “inadvertent.”
JPL
Lying is okay if you are a repub, just ask Bill O’Reilly whose entire bio is a fiction.
Renie
Did Jeb? leak this?
Baud would never do any “inadvertently” with his financial disclosures.
Wag
Cruz should be toast. He won’t be, but he should be.
Baud
@Wag: Can you imagine the uproar if it were a Dem who forgot a $1 million loan from Goldman Sachs.
amk
meh, who has got time to remember piddly million dollar loans when jeebus wanted me to be the prezinent? big picture, fools.
Baud
@Renie: There are advantages to dedicating no financial resources to my campaign. Much less paperwork.
dmsilev
Please. Who among us _hasn’t_ gotten a several hundred thousand dollar loan from their employer and just had it slip our mind? Happens every day.
Shrillhouse
Isn’t there a debate tomorrow night? Any wagers on how long it takes Trump to bring it up?
Those kinds of financial shenanigans might fly in Canada, but….
amk
@Renie: you should ask him about the billion dollar bailout he just got from suzanne in the last thread.
The Dude
Breaking news from the ny times? 100% of conservatives have already dismissed this as another smear from the LIEbrul media.
Baud
@Shrillhouse: If we have to suffer through Trump’s proto-fascism, the least he could do at the debate is put a little Canadian flag on Cruz’s podium for the lulz.
Roger Moore
But Cruz is an outsider who can’t be bought by those Washington interests. New York interests, though, not so much.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Speaking of liars, some woman gave Mike Huckabee an earful over his kind words for the Duggars. Huckabee blathered about how the woman didn’t know the family and he did, and blah, blah, blah.
John Cole
@srv: 60-80? The two pak was 3 bucks.
amk
@srv: $60-80? #idjit
eta: see that big man hisself beat me to it.
JPL
@srv: They sell disposable electric toothbrushes that don’s cost that much.
next time try google
Mike J
Was Cabell Hobbs was the treasurer on that run? If so, shouldn’t somebody be asking him comments?
Zinsky
The fact that his spouse works for the Vampire Squid, Goldman Sachs, should disqualify this phony handjob from public office.
jl
Aw dammit, there goes the Cole e-toothbrush blog grift scandal. I was looking forward to that one.
NotMax
“You mean we have to track this stuff? Math is hard.”
azlib
Cruz did not forget. It was a deliberate omission.
Renie
@amk: Is Suzanne giving them out to just anyone or only distinguished Juicers running for president? I would like to get one.
raven
@NotMax: Hey, I saw your post about the sugar fields. I got up really early and poked around there during my visit. It should be nice for the burn to stop. What will they do with the land?
amk
@Renie: everyone except one. dunno who is that unfortunate person.
jl
@azlib: I thought that nice Mr. Cruz was supposed to be very smart, but this sounds very stupid. How could that be? (Seriously, how did he think he could get away with it? I guess he figures he can sell any BS to people who are likely to support him).
@Renie: Problem is that it was in BJ-bucks. Twenty of those will get you a punch in the neck, which explains a lot about the Bawdy Baud campaign.
The Dude
What kind of “loan” did Goldman give him? I didn’t think personal loans were what they did, at least officially. In other words, did he buy an official product, or did he get a special favor?
Baud
@The Dude:
The article says it was a loan against their brokerage account.
Mike J
@Renie: If I win, I’ll have a commission for Suzanne’s architecture skills so maybe she can ignore her wingnut boss.
Roger Moore
@The Dude:
Presumably they gave the loan to his wife, who’s an employee (though theoretically on indefinite leave during the campaign). It’s fairly common for companies to loan money, or arrange others to loan money, to the kind of employees they have to spend a lot of time and effort recruiting. Helping them get mortgages is a classic example.
The Dude
@Roger Moore: thanks.
Interesting that Ken Gross was quoted in the Times article. IIRC, most of the street uses Ken’s firm (and practice group) for political law advice, with the odd exception of GS.
Steve in the ATL
Goldman Sachs is the closest thing on this Earth to pure, unadulterated evil, but they are also smart. They grease palms on both sides of the aisle. Of course, our guys disclose it….
NotMax
@raven
Still up in the air, but so far the plans seem to be to devote it to more diversified agriculture. Whether that means mostly biomass for energy, feed for cattle or stuff humans can eat is as yet not known. There’s been some preliminary talk of putting suitable acreage into use as orchards, which would be nice. The water and irrigation infrastructure in the central isthmus is still a valuable asset, one which is not going to be abandoned. Two members of the state legislature today floated the idea of hemp as the primary crop.
36,000 acres offers a lot of options. Other than maybe some orphaned fields (surrounded by current or planned development), no one expects A&B to sell off land. Many of the fields closest to town already have been transitioned to commercial development within the past few years, particularly those abutting or bisected by the new airport road (still under construction).
Expect there will still be some very small plots of cane (harvested sans burning) for tours and to supply local companies such as this.
So far as the workers go, there are plans afoot.
Mnemosyne
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Huckabee pardoned not one, but at least two different murderers who then went on to murder more people. His track record on deciding who is and isn’t a good person who deserves the benefit of the doubt is a little checkered, to say the least.
Gvg
And how is it supposed to be paid back? Has it been paid back? I don’t think Senators official legal saleries don’t pay back million dollar loans quickly. I think voters have a right to know if that loan has been paid and how. Then look at any legislation he had a hand in that benefitted GS.
Gravenstone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
This would be the same Duggar clan whose eldest son he loudly supported in the face of the child molestation allegations? Until he suddenly decided that wasn’t good for his (Huck’s) reputation, so he summarily refuted any and all such support ever happened? Those Duggars? Pick a fucking story and stick with it, Huck you fucking imbecile!
Gravenstone
@raven: deleted because NM got there first
raven
@Gravenstone: Yea, he’s got a nice post above.
Heliopause
I assume that Trump, even though he himself is from the investor class, will do something with this in the coming days. In fact, he could push the narrative that Cruz is a Cuban-Canadian financed by his wife who in turn is financed by Jewish bankers, although that might be a bridge too far even for Trump.
David Koch
@Heliopause: No it’s not. He shocked a right wing jewish audience with an anti Semitic speech just last month (did right to their face, just like you know who)
debbie
@Zinsky:
Don’t forget, sir, that that Squid does God’s work!
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): My god. What a revolting video that is. Mike Huckabee is the worst kind of scum there is. And those who applauded him there equally so. I have been accused of destroying a family because I believed a child who told us what happened. I have an idea of what that woman has gone through – and is still going through.
danielx
@dmsilev:
Hey, happens to me all the time. I was just thinking my mattress stuffed with greenbacks was feeling a little uncomfortable, must have paid off one of those loans and forgotten about it.
Suzanne
@Mike J: I didn’t win. No BJ mortgage payoff. I mean, I’ll accept one.
I’ll still do your house, if you want modern.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Furniture alert on TCM very early Thursday morn.
Suzanne
FURNITURE!
I got some Knoll Eames chairs at 75% off list at a charity auction. LOOOOOVE.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Goes back nearly some 40 years, but scored 6 solid tiger maple dining room chairs at an auction way, way, way out in the sticks for $20 apiece.
Left them in parents’ basement when later moved to Hawaii. They weren’t there when I returned in 2013 to help Mom pack up the house and move. Never asked what happened to them.
Still regret one item I passed up at that same auction – a working Wurlitzer bubbler jukebox. Sold for $35. Saw one just like it in the window of an antique shop in Manhattan not long after, priced at five grand.
Denali
Trump has already demonstrated that there is no bridge that he will not cross – there is no bar that is too low. People have no memory of the McCarthy era, so they will help us experience it all over again. Yay.
tam1MI
I am absolutely certain that the So-Called Liberal Media that persecuted Hillary for months over a bit of stupid e-mails will drop this story like a rock now that Mrs. Cruz has “explained” everything.