U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio urges Florida Ethics Commission to toss complaint against him

[seafan]

Source: Tampa Bay Times (formerly St. Petersburg Times)

In a move sure to increase speculation he is angling to be the Republican vice presidential running mate, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is demanding the Florida Ethics Commission close out a complaint that he misused Republican and campaign money "to subsidize his lifestyle."

.....

The March 2010 ethics complaint came during Rubio's Senate campaign against then-Gov. Charlie Crist and was filed by Michael D. Ryan of Fort Lauderdale, who said he based it on articles in the Tampa Bay Times (then St. Petersburg Times) and Miami Herald. The newspapers reported that Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House, routinely charged personal expenses to his party-issued credit card from 2006 to 2008.

Rubio said he repaid personal expenses. Others raised questions, such as the nearly $4,000 he billed the Republican Party of Florida for a rental car in Miami and repairs to his family minivan, which he said was damaged by a valet at a political event.

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A rising figure in national Republican politics, Rubio is considered a top candidate as a vice presidential running mate. He insists he's focused on representing Florida but questions about his past are already drawing national media scrutiny. This week, the Wall Street Journal urged him to air out any vetting problems now so he would not become the next Sarah Palin or Dan Quayle.

.....



Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/us-sen-marco-rubio-urges-florida-ethics-commission-to-toss-complaint/1218064

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Yep.

As the article states, Rubio's past has 'always dangled, ripe for scrutiny' by the press and his opponents. He's been able to hide it for far too long.

We in Florida have been watching this guy for years. And there is a long trail of dirty finances in his past.


Maybe the upcoming trial this summer of former Republican Party of Florida head Jim Greer, when all of this will be aired out in public, has Rubio finally running scared.

Come to think of it, there are several in the GOP leadership in the Florida legislature that might also be squirming right now.




Maybe to Rubio, PAC does indeed mean 'personal access to cash', according to the ethics complaint, characterizing his actions as "fraud upon his donors whose donations were solicited for political purposes, not to subsidize his lifestyle."



Thinking of running for something, Mr. Rubio, with your demands that these ethics complaints against you be dropped?

But, Mr. Rubio also said this on October 21, 2011:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says he's not going to be the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012 because he's focused on being a U.S. senator.

Speaking at a political forum in Washington, Rubio said flatly: "I'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee." He then repeated himself.

Rubio said he didn't run for the Senate "to have a launching pad for another job."

Gonna be hard to walk that one back, Mr. Rubio.


But, maybe Mr. Rubio is correct. After his nasty financial laundry finally sees the harsh light of day, he'll decide that any future political ambition he sees for himself just isn't going to happen.



Time is surely going to tell.

[seafan]

1. Rubio repeatedly blames others for his unresolved ethics charges.

How typically Rubio.



AP, via the Times


March 3, 2012, Tampa Bay Times:

.....

"The complaint was filled with false information and reached absurd and incoherent conclusions," he wrote. "Furthermore, the Democratic donor based the entire complaint on press accounts, not on any actual knowledge or evidence."

Oh, no, it's not Mr. Rubio's fault!

.....In November, Rubio provided the ethics commission with information he said explained the circumstances and cleared him of wrongdoing. His letter Friday included an affidavit. He said, for example, that the double-billed flights issue arose because he did not book his travel as speaker. He said he reimbursed the Republican Party of Florida $2,417.

He said the college job and consulting work he did with Jackson Health Center and Miami Children's Hospital — all of which seek state funding — came after he left the Florida House due to term limits.

"They were not contemplated by me during the 2008 state legislative session in any manner, way, shape or form and had absolutely no bearing on any official decisions I made at any time during my service as an elected official in the Florida House of Representatives," Rubio wrote.

The affidavit, however, does not address some of the other issues, including the political committee spending.

.....

When Rubio's lavish personal spending on the GOP American Express card first came to light during the Senate campaign, he went running to John Thrasher, crying that 'Crist did it'.


February 26, 2010:

Gov. Charlie Crist said his rival for the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio, has no one to blame but himself for double-billing the state and Republican Party of Florida for eight plane tickets when he was House Speaker. Rubio has accused Crist of leaking his party credit card records to The Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times.

"If he wants to find out who to blame for this, he should look in the mirror. He is the one who made these charges, not me, not any of my friends,'' Crist said at a road construction event in Broward County. "I mean, you know, when you do something like that you ought to just take personal responsibility."

.....

A panicky Rubio proclaimed that 'There is no reason to release my earlier credit card statements.'


Now he's out demanding that ethics complaints against him be dropped. Not so fast, Mr. Rubio.



It's always someone else's fault, isn't it, Mr. Rubio?


For Mr. Rubio, it is time to pay the piper.

[seafan]

2. Rubio: "Our political opponents will be tempted to try to mischaracterize this process."

Marco Rubio AP (via Politico)



Politico:

March 2, 2012

.....
In a letter to the Florida Commission on Ethics, the freshman GOP senator described the (ethics) complaint as “baseless” and politically motivated. He said the panel only informed his office of the complaint in August 2011 — some 16 months after a Democratic donor filed it in the midst of Rubio’s tough Senate race against then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

.....

“(O)ur political opponents will be tempted to try to mischaracterize this process. They will try to create the perception that this complaint has some merit by claiming that this process had been going on for two years. Or they will simply try to claim that I am under some sort of ‘investigation,” Rubio wrote.

.....

In his letter, Rubio said his office was verbally notified that the ethics panel staffers had recommended the complaint be “thrown out as legally insufficient” and that the “vast majority” of the complaint had in fact been dismissed.

“It has been almost 2 years since this politically motivated complaint was filed. It was never properly served. No work was done on it at all for over 16 months,” Rubio wrote. “And now, after we were finally notified of its existence, another 6 months have passed with no action at all.”

So, Mr. Rubio, you claim didn't know of this citizen complaint until August, 2011, some 16 months after it was filed? That would be in April of 2010, wouldn't it?

In his letter Friday, Rubio said he did not get official notice of the complaint until August 2011, when one was sent to his Senate office in Doral.

Well, then, maybe Mr. Rubio is thinking about that OTHER investigation that commenced at the same time, in April of 2010.


Here it is.


It was the glaring headline in the Tampa Bay Times and other newspapers around the state on April 21, 2010:


U.S. attorney, IRS and FBI investigating Florida GOP credit card use

Federal law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation into the use of American Express cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida to elected officials and staff, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

.....

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are all involved in the inquiry, which grew out of the state investigation into former House Speaker Ray Sansom. He was indicted on criminal charges that he stashed $6 million in the state budget for an airplane hangar for a friend and campaign donor.

(Who is Ray Sansom? Why... he used to be Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio's hand-picked budget chief.)

.....

Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders — former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson — to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.

* * * *


“(O)ur political opponents will be tempted to try to mischaracterize this process. They will try to create the perception that this complaint has some merit by claiming that this process had been going on for two years. Or they will simply try to claim that I am under some sort of ‘investigation,” Rubio wrote.


* * * *


Well, Mr. Rubio, it certainly DOES appear that you are under "some sort of investigation", doesn't it?

Actually, it looks like three investigations.


Let's see... politically motivated, you say? Not so much. The U.S. attorney, IRS and FBI launched this one.


And it actually has been going on for nearly two years now.




It's not difficult to determine exactly who is the liar here.



The people deserve to know about Marco Rubio. They certainly did not know fully about him when he carefully embellished his personal narrative to glean their votes.


And after he took those votes, he rode to the U. S. Senate.

[No Elephants]

3. Rick Scott's Florida has an Ethics Commission? Huh!

If Romney is the nominee, Rubio will never be on the ticket.

It's hard enough for Republicans to accept one Mormon on the ticket.