Marco Rubio’s financial history continues to haunt him and the scrutiny is only set to intensify as his fame grows in the Republican race for the presidency. During his time in the Florida state House of Representatives, Rubio was one of a small number of legislators given credit cards backed by the Republican Party of Florida. It is currently reported that Rubio charged as much, if not more, than $160,000 to the card in two years, including personal expenses. Rubio, to date, has refused to release records that fully detail how those funds were used.
As the Tampa Bay Times reports:
As speaker of the Florida House, Rubio was one of about a half-dozen lawmakers given Republican Party of Florida credit cards. During the Senate race, the Times/Herald obtained Rubio’s statements from 2006 and 2007, showing he routinely charged personal expenses, from a $10.50 movie ticket to a four-day, $10,000 family reunion.
In those two years he charged about $110,000, and he said he sent about $16,000 to American Express to cover personal expenses, though the expenses were never detailed. In a 2012 memoir, he wrote, “From January of 2005 until October of 2008 I charged about $160,000 in party-authorized expenses.”
Rubio has continuously refused to disclose the details of the charges or explain the numerous examples of personal expenses on the party’s account.
“Those credit card statements are an internal party matter. I’m not going to release them,” Rubio said to the Times-Union of Jacksonville in 2010.
For more on this, read the article from the Tampa Bay Times titled: “Marco Rubio spent lavishly on a GOP credit card, but some transactions are still secret.“
