With the release of the 2005-06 statements, there is now a full public accounting of Mr. Rubio’s expenses for the four years he had a Republican Party credit card in his capacity as head of campaign operations for Florida House Republicans. His opponents and news outlets had long asked that they be disclosed.
In all, his campaign said on Saturday, Mr. Rubio spent $182,072 on the card from January 2005 through December 2008, of which 12 percent, or $22,003, was personal and was paid to American Express directly by him.
But those payments were routinely late — 21 times over the course of those four years — sometimes because he did not pay on time, and sometimes because the Republican Party fell behind. The account, which was listed under his name, was assessed delinquency charges seven times, adding up to $1,639.47.
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The embarrassment started in 2010 with the disclosure that he had used the party’s card to pay for personal items — a $10,000 family reunion in Georgia, for instance
...one that became a big distraction for Mr. Rubio when it was first disclosed five years ago: a $3,756 charge in October 2005 to Iberia Tiles for what has been described as stone pavers at his home. Mr. Rubio, who has said that he pulled the wrong card from his wallet to pay the bill, paid American Express at the time to cover the bill, according to his campaign.
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There were expenses for Disney World and Sea World, regular gathering spots for Florida’s political class. Sometimes he spent a lot more, like a $1,600 fund-raising trip to New York when he stayed at the St. Regis Hotel.
Around this time Mr. Rubio saw significant swings in his net worth, when he had multiple mortgages and a home equity line of credit, while making $300,000 a year as a lawyer in addition to his legislative pay, according to Florida financial disclosures.
In late 2008, around the time he left office, Mr. Rubio disclosed a net worth of about $8,000, down from $200,000 a couple years earlier, according to his disclosures.
Mr. Rubio blamed his opponent in the 2010 Senate primary, Charlie Crist, the governor at the time, for leaking an earlier batch of credit card statements, and he denounced Mr. Crist with a statement that seems almost unbelievable in the context of today’s presidential campaign. “The Florida G.O.P. under Jeb Bush was never run with this sort of arrogance, mismanagement, lack of integrity and lack of leadership.”
Mr. Bush, who is also running for president, said last week that he believes the credit card statements are fair game.
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His blurring of personal and professional expenses, while not illegal, is already being seized on by rivals like Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who got to know Mr. Rubio as a rising star but is now calling his judgment into question, and Donald J. Trump, who has mocked him for making financially irresponsible decisions like liquidating a retirement account.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/u...nforces-a-picture-of-messy-finances.html?_r=0