Rubio trolls for wads of cash, four years away from reelection campaign, via 'Leadership Committee'

'I'm writing you today with a special invitation. I've chosen a very few committed patriots for a new opportunity to join my Leadership Committee, and your past loyalty and dedication to conservative causes landed your name at the top of the list.

I hope you'll join me today by accepting the leadership role I've reserved for you in my own organization. When you join my Leadership Committee, you will become one of my most trusted and reliable supporters in this battle for fiscal reform and all the critical battles to come.

Let me tell you a little more about this unique opportunity.

When my staff determined that my aggressive public relations campaign against the Obama agenda would only incite the wrath of the liberal left, we compiled a comprehensive list of potential supporters.

Because I'm going to come under serious fire in my reelection campaign, we needed to identify a select group of the most generous American patriots who we deemed the best candidates to join us.

And of course, we needed to find those few friends we know would respond right away. These discriminating criteria set the bar high.

Many thousands didn't make the cut.

Mr. XXXXXXX you are without question one of those special friends who we decided would be a perfect choice for our Leadership Committee. Your loyal support to conservative candidates and causes is really treasured by everyone on my team.

I'm personally touched and inspired by your generosity.

The sheer magnitude of your support for other conservative candidates and causes tells me that you are deeply and selflessly committed to the principles of freedom. That's why I think you would make a perfect candidate for my brand-new Leadership Committee.

.....

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What Rubio does not tell the crowds is that he has gone deep into debt and struggled to make his payments, with Deutsche Bank initiating foreclosure proceedings on one of his homes in June.

Rubio resolved the foreclosure case, but debt has been a constant companion. In 2005, he carried more than $1 million in debt with mortgages on three homes, a home equity line of credit, a car loan and more than $150,000 in student loans.

As he tried to meet his obligations, Rubio engaged in a series of financial transactions that led to accusations that he received special treatment because of his political connections, abused campaign cash and engaged in deals where a conflict of interest existed between his political position and financial benefit.

Such deals seem to contradict the principles Rubio espouses on the campaign trail: calling for balanced budgets as he strained his own, and criticizing government waste as he arranged unadvertised government jobs for himself.

They include:

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Marco Rubio was barely solvent as a young lawmaker climbing his way to the top post in the Florida House, but special interest donations and political perks allowed him to spend big money with little scrutiny.

About $600,000 in contributions was stowed in two inconspicuous political committees controlled by Rubio, now the Republican front-runner for the U.S. Senate, and his wife. A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald analysis of the expenses found:

• Rubio failed to disclose $34,000 in expenses — including $7,000 he paid himself — for one of the committees in 2003 and 2004, as required by state law.

• One committee paid relatives nearly $14,000 for what was incorrectly described to the IRS as "courier fees" and listed a nonexistent address for one of them. Another committee paid $5,700 to his wife, who was listed as the treasurer, much of it for "gas and meals."

• He billed more than $51,000 in unidentified "travel expenses'' to three different credit cards — nearly one-quarter of the committee's entire haul.

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And what did Rubio's finances look like when he left the Speakership and the Florida legislature itself in late 2008?






Eerily similar to his buddy David Rivera.... living off a mysteriously generous stream of "income", but claiming minuscule net worth at the same time.