FEC Complaint Filed Against Senator Ted Cruz and His 2012 Senate Campaign for Failure to Report Loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank and Possible Improper Use of Assets to Secure the Loans

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Today, the Campaign Legal Center, with Democracy 21, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) urging the FEC to investigate apparent violations of campaign finance laws by Senator Ted Cruz and the 2012 Cruz for Senate Campaign relating to loans he obtained from Goldman Sachs and Citibank for use in his 2012 Senate campaign. According to the complaint, Senator Cruz failed to report the loans to the FEC, as required by law, and may have used a portion of his wife’s assets to secure the loan resulting in the campaign accepting excessive contributions.

The complaint asks the FEC to formally investigate the apparent violations and seek appropriate sanctions.

According to published reports, Senator Cruz used loans from Citibank and Goldman Sachs to help finance his 2012 election to the U.S. Senate, but his campaign committee failed to include the loans on the reports his campaign filed with the FEC. While it has been reported that Senator Cruz claimed that he and his wife had liquidated their “entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” it instead appears that he used both personal and joint assets to secure loans from the two banks, a fact he failed to disclose.   

A review of Senator Cruz’s Senate Financial Disclosure Reports for 2011 and 2012 also raise the question of whether he used his wife’s share of their joint assets as security for the loans, which would likely result in the campaign accepting an illegal contribution. 

“The failure to report these loans is a clear cut violation of the law and kept voters in the dark about the money behind the Cruz campaign,” said Paul S. Ryan, Deputy Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center, which took the lead in drafting the FEC complaint. “If he also used his wife’s assets to obtain these unreported loans, he caused his committee to accept illegal excessive contributions from his wife.” 
 

To read the FEC complaint, click here