CHARLESTON, S.C. — Don’t expect Donald Trump to use the issue of [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore]’s Goldman Sachs loan to attack the Texas senator. He plans to tie Cruz to the investment bank in a totally different, more conspiratorial way.
Wednesday night, The New York Times reported that Cruz didn’t properly disclose to the Federal Elections Commission a loan he obtained from Goldman Sachs to help fund his 2012 Senate campaign. Before Cruz launched his presidential bid, his wife was a managing director of the investment bank based in its Houston office.
Asked about the issue in the media filing center of Thursday’s Fox Business Network Republican primary debate, Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said she wasn’t “quite sure” the loan will be a major issue of attack for her candidate against Cruz. She then revealed how The Donald actually plans to tie Cruz to his wife’s former employer.
“I think the bigger issue is the fact that Sen. Cruz campaigned on auditing the Fed, co-sponsored the bill and then skipped the vote,” she said.
Why did he do that? Pierson suggested it might be because the Federal Reserve’s board has “a lot of Goldman Sachs folks” on it and Cruz may be beholden to the investment bank because of the donations he received from Goldman Sachs employees who don’t particularly like the idea of Congress auditing the Federal Reserve.
“Mr. Trump has always been consistent in saying that politicians are beholden to their donors and the people that fund them,” Pierson said.
Cruz has received over $60,000 in political contributions from individuals who work for Goldman Sachs to his Senate campaign since 2011 and over $40,000 in contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The “audit the Fed” bill Pierson was speaking of failed in the Senate 53-44 Tuesday. Cruz missed the vote, though his vote would not have made a difference in the bill’s passage. Fellow Republican rival [crscore]Rand Paul[/crscore] has also been attacking Cruz for his absence, though the idea that Cruz missed the vote to help out his supposed buddies at Goldman Sachs is a conspiracy theory that is wholly original to Trump.
Like many Trump attacks, Pierson frames this one as the billionaire Republican frontrunner just asking questions. He doesn’t know whether Cruz missed the vote because he is a tool of Goldman Sachs. He’s just wondering aloud!
Pierson said she doesn’t see Trump bringing up the issue on his own during Thursday night’s debate, but don’t be surprised if it somehow works its way into the conversation. And if it doesn’t come up at the debate, expect to hear more about it from Trump on the campaign trail, especially in Iowa, where Cruz is neck and neck with The Donald in the polls.
*This article has been updated.