Jeb Bush fundraiser Brian Ballard defects over attacks on Marco Rubio

He also had to repay $2,400 in travel expenses that he billed to the party and state taxpayers. The Washington Post found that Rubio did use his card for personal expenses, but at the end of each month would go through the statements and reimburse American Express for any personal charges.

I looked at the field and have now concluded that the best man to lead America forward in this new American century is Marco Rubio, Pompeo said on Fox News’s The Real Story with Gretchen Carlsonon Friday.

That’s the question critics from both parties are asking this week as the GOP presidential candidate’s past financial decisions continue to make headlines.

The new release includes a trip to Las Vegas, where the campaign said Rubio funded an extension of a business trip to visit family, as well as an instance where he has said he “pulled the wrong card from my wallet to pay for pavers”.

Rubio added that he had paid his personal bills “years before any of this was even public”.

In all, the personal expenses amounted to $7,243.74 out of the $64,777.82 charged to the card from January 2005-October 2006.

The risk for Rubio, who has acknowledged “a lack of bookkeeping skills”, is that the credit card may become a symbol of a larger pattern of financial challenges in his recent past, including a brush with foreclosure on a second home in 2010 over late mortgage payments and the recent liquidation of a retirement account that prompted a large tax penalty.

“The level of negligence exhibited by Respondent’s confusion between the (Republican Party of Florida) American Express card and his personal MasterCard, together with his failure to recognize the error when reviewing the months’ statements, and his signature on the reimbursement requests, is disturbing”, the ethics commission advocate wrote.

“It’s been coming up for five years, it’s not a new issue”, Rubio said Wednesday in New Hampshire. In the years that followed, through December 2008, he used it 65 more times for what he said were personal items.

Numerous charges disclosed Saturday are for mundane expenses, such as $6.19 at Burger King in August 2005 and countless gas station expenses.

It was unclear which of these expenses were personal or GOP-related. (Corcoran, the incoming Florida House speaker, is backing Jeb Bush for president). Marco Rubio and Texas Sen.

Cruz has spoken admiringly of Rubio, telling reporters that he has modeled his 2012 campaign after Rubio’s insurgent 2010 run, and the pair has remained close in the Senate.

His campaign says that won’t be a problem and has promised to release records in “the next few weeks” showing just that.

It’s unclear what effect, if any, the matter will have on Rubio’s presidential campaign. On December 29, 2005, for instance, Rubio spent $12.37 at on Original Latin American Cafeteria in Miami. Rubio argues that the card was mistakenly used, and he paid back the credit card company directly for personal expenses purchased on the card.

Republican candidates also denigrated the process by offering lowlights: Donald Trump embarrassed John Kasich by equating Kasich’s stage position with his low poll numbers, and Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush sparred about Rubio’s voting record.