Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign tells feds it won’t explain its plans for leftover cash

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign has declined to provide information requested by federal regulators on how it will spend $32,000 in campaign cash it had on hand eight years after the Texas Republican’s failed White House run.

The Federal Election Commission in a Sept. 30 letter asked the Cruz for President campaign to clarify how it plans to spend the cash, which remained on hand as of June 30, 2024. The letter notes that such “residual” campaign money can’t be converted to a candidate’s personal use.

“If the candidate intends to terminate the committee, redesignate the committee as a principal campaign committee for a future election or convert it to a multi-candidate political committee, please note this for the public record,” states the FEC document, which gave Cruz for President 45 days to respond.

However, in an Oct. 5 letter, Cruz for President Treasurer Bradley Knippa essentially told the FEC to mind its own business. Under federal law, the committee isn’t required to explain its plans for the cash, he wrote.

Knippa added: “Needless to say, the Cruz for President committee will spend and dispose of its residual funds in a lawful manner in due course … .” When contacted by phone at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Knippa — an attorney for law firm Jackson Walker’s Austin office — said he needed to coordinate with another attorney to provide comment to the Current. He said he’d call back once he was able to do so.

Knippa didn’t respond by the article’s 4 p.m. press time.

Cruz for President’s pushback at the FEC comes as the agency looks into whether the senator’s controversial distribution deal for his three-times-a-week podcast violates campaign-finance law.

Under that arrangement, San Antonio-based radio group iHeartMedia syndicates Cruz’s The Verdict with Ted Cruz in exchange for flowing money derived from ad sales in a super PAC that lists its key goal as ensuring the senator’s reelection.

A pair of watchdog groups earlier this year asked the FEC to determine whether the deal is illegal. Under federal law, super PACs can accept direct corporate donations, but candidates can’t “solicit, receive, direct, transfer, or spend funds” on behalf of those fundraising groups.

Cruz’s senate campaign has stated its relationship with iHeartMedia doesn’t violate the law.

“Ted Cruz thumbing his nose at the FEC is nothing new,” Jonas Edwards-Jenks, communications director for End Citizens United — one of the two campaign-finance watchdogs that sought the podcast probe — said of Cruz for President’s recent letter to the federal agency. 

Campaign finance experts said it’s not illegal for federal campaigns to sit on leftover cash after an election has come and gone. However, they did say it’s unusual for them to spend such a prolonged period without donating leftover cash to other currently active campaigns.

Cruz’s senate campaign also received separate FEC scrutiny in August. In that instance, the agency asked the campaign to explain or return tens of thousands of dollars in contributions that appear to violate federal legal limits.

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This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 15, 2024.