Ted Cruz improperly accounted for Goldman Sachs loans, FEC decides

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Sen. Ted Cruz improperly accounted for Goldman Sachs loans he acquired during his 2012 Senate campaign, the Federal Election Commission ruled on Thursday.

In a unanimous vote, FEC commissioners decided that the nearly $1.1 million in loans made to the to the campaign by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup should have been disclosed to voters and the American public.

The final report from the FEC is expected in 30 days, and further action, such as penalty for Cruz, will be decided, should the FEC decide to initiate an “enforcement action” at a later date.

But Cruz’s office said this is “old news.”

“This is old news-simply the conclusion of the same inadvertent reporting error that was widely reported during the presidential campaign,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told Fox News. “Our campaign has been working with the FEC, in a process that actually started several years ago, to determine what amendments should be made to our campaign finance reports from the 2011-12 election cycle.”

The revelations surrounding the Cruz campaign’s handling of Goldman Sachs funds first surfaced in January 2016 during the presidential race, when the The New York Times reported that Cruz failed to note that he’d received a low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, which employed his wife, Heidi.

Frazier added: “These loans have been properly disclosed on the Senator’s public financial disclosure forms since day one, and we will now begin the process of amending how they are reported on the FEC reports now that the audit process has concluded.”

The Cruz campaign told reporters last year that the loans were not something the senator and his wife were trying to hide, and that any mishandlings were an “oversight.”

Federal election law permits candidates to take loans from commercial banks, but only if they disclose the funding source, interest rate and other terms. Candidates are also able to lend their campaigns unlimited personal funds.