Ted Cruz liquidated Chevron shares after campaign launch
Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz unloaded all his shares of Chevron Corporation at the end of last year, selling them off for as much as $100,000, according to transaction filings with the U.S. Senate. A campaign spokesperson tells CBS News that the Texas Senator sold the stock because he needed the liquidity.
The sales took place in two transactions - one on October 15 and the other on November 29, the filings show. Campaign spokesman Rick Tyler said none of the money went toward Cruz's presidential campaign, and there was no particular reason to sell Chevron beyond needing liquidity. Tyler wouldn't comment when asked whether Heidi Cruz's unpaid leave from Goldman Sachs is a financial hardship.
Cruz's personal financial disclosures for the 2014 calendar year, filed in August, showed that he had between $50,000 and $100,000 invested in Chevron - part of a portfolio that included as much as $850,000 in energy related companies.
His 2014 disclosures, the most recent available, also show an asset for a "Loan to Cruz for Senate Campaign" campaign between $500,000 and $1,000,000 that same year.
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Cruz's net worth is estimated around $3 million and he has liquidated assets in the past - like in 2012 to help fund his upstart Senate campaign. His personal finances have drawn new scrutiny and at tonight's Republican debate, Cruz could face questions about why he didn't disclose more than $1 million in loans, partly from his wife's employer, Goldman Sachs and another from Citibank, that went toward his 2012 Senate campaign. After the loans were revealed by the New York Times last night, his campaign called the failure to report the loans a mistake.
Asked about the report last night, Cruz said the loans were disclosed for many years. He said that he and his wife "put our liquid net worth into" the Senate campaign "through a combination of savings, liquidating our savings accounts, a combination of selling assets and then we had a brokerage account that has a standard margin loan like any brokerage account has, and we borrowed against the stocks and assets that we had under ordinary terms."