WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) — Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said he will amend his financial reports from his 2012 U.S. Senate bid to reflect a nearly $1 million loan if federal authorities determine the amendment is necessary.
Cruz, in response to a New York Times report, said not disclosing the loan from Goldman Sachs was a “technical and inadvertent filing error.” The Times reported Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained low-interest loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank, for a maximum of $1 million, but they were not disclosed on campaign finance reports at the time. Candidates must report the sources of borrowed money to the Federal Election Commission.
“It is an inadvertent filing question,” Cruz told reporters after a campaign event in South Carolina on Wednesday. “The facts of the underlying matter have been disclosed for many, many years.”
Cruz said nothing that came up that wasn’t already public knowledge.
“Those loans had been disclosed over and over and over again on multiple filings,” he said. “If it was the case that they were not filed exactly as the [Federal Election Commission] requires, then we’ll amend the filings, but all of the information has been public and transparent for many years, and that’s the end of that.”
Cruz’s presidential campaign spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said the Goldman Sachs loan, drawn against the value of the Cruzes’ brokerage account, was used for his Senate race. She did not address the Citibank loan.
“Cruz wrote a personal check to his campaign for $1.4 million. Those funds came from a combination of his personal savings, selling some stock and taking a loan out against his assets. Because he took a loan out against his assets, that detail should’ve been in the FEC form,” Frazier said. “We’re reaching out to the FEC and asking them their recommendation on anything we need to do to update or amend that report.”
Heidi Cruz is on leave from her job as a managing director at Goldman Sachs.