Campaign 2010

May 12, 2011

Rick Crawford: What Did you Do And When Did you Do it?

Yesterday’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette shows Representative Rick Crawford (R-Truth Impaired) continuing to dodge basic questions about his personal financial failures and fiscally irresponsible past. Crawford previously filed for bankruptcy over unpaid credit card debts but, during his campaign, claimed that he had entirely repaid them. Unfortunately, instead of helping reporters substantiate his claims, Crawford chose to block the newspaper’s attempts to verify his statements. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette compared his secrecy to that of the Nixon administration.

 

Now, The Arkansas Democrat Gazette revealed that Crawford might not have repaid the debts until three weeks after he was confronted about this last fall. Why won’t Rick Crawford come clean with the facts if he’s indeed telling the truth? What did Rick Crawford do and when did he do it?

 

From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette:

 

Earlier Friday, at the Delta Grassroots Caucus conference at the Clinton Presidential Center, the Democrat-Gazette asked Crawford if he had paid $630.50 to the University Hospital and Clinic in Columbia, Mo., on Aug. 16, 2010 - nearly three weeks after he had told the newspaper that he had repaid every penny of the $12,611.67 to creditors by 1998.

 

Crawford initially refused to answer, walking quickly ahead of a reporter to the second-floor escalator and exiting the center.

 

At a waiting car, Crawford again declined to address whether he had paid the debt in 2010, adding that “the whole premise is false. I think it’s time you dropped this.”

 

Just before 6 p.m. Friday, Nix e-mailed the newspaper with Crawford’s statement, which also said that “Democratic operatives ... fielded a shameless poll last week asking First District voters what they thought about the bankruptcy.

The Democrat-Gazette first reported on Crawford’s bankruptcy on July 29, when he told the paper that he “didn’t have a real clear memory” about the $4,239.95 in medical bills listed in his April 1994 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Missouri.

[…]  Soon after that Democrat-Gazette story appeared, Jonah Shumate, then Crawford’s campaign manager, told Jason Tolbert, a conservative blogger, that Crawford had “made good on all his obligations.”

[…] On July 30, when the Democrat-Gazette asked Crawford to clarify what he meant by meeting his obligations, he said he had completely paid back creditors from his Chapter 7 bankruptcy, even though he had no legal obligation to do so.

“There is no way I can prove it,” he said. “It was the right thing to do.” The Democrat-Gazette reported Crawford’s response on July 31.

The newspaper then contacted the Columbia hospital, holder of the largest debt on his filing, $3,600.

The hospital said it couldn’t discuss Crawford’s past debts without Crawford’s permission.

On Aug. 3, Crawford declined to allow the hospital to disclose whether Crawford’s debt had been paid. The Democrat-Gazette reported about the lack of disclosure on Aug. 4.

On Aug. 11, Crawford did authorize a hospital spokesman to tell The Associated Press that he now had a “zero balance” with the institution. But he did not give the hospital permission to disclose when the debt had been repaid.

Background

 

  • Crawford Filed Bankruptcy for $12K in Debt. “First Congressional District Republican nominee Rick Crawford filed for bankruptcy 16 years ago, erasing more than $12,000 in personal debts, Bankruptcy Court records show. Crawford, who on the stump talks more about out of control federal spending than any other issue, hasn’t spoken publicly about his Missouri bankruptcy filing. Most of his debt was the result of credit-card purchases.” [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 7/29/10]  

 

  • Crawford Said He “Paid Back All of the Debt.” Crawford told the Democrat-Gazette that “he had paid back all of the debt, even though his Chapter 7 bankruptcy dissolved those debts. He said he paid his creditors back by 1998.” Additionally, Crawford’s campaign manager said that Crawford had “made good on all his obligations.”  [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 8/4/10]

 

  • Crawford Kept Lid on Payback of Debt. “Republican congressional hopeful Rick Crawford has blocked efforts by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to verify his claim that he paid back more than $12,000 in bankruptcy debts. On Tuesday, his campaign said he will not sign privacy waivers that would allow the newspaper to determine whether he had repaid his creditors. He also declined to obtain and release the billing records himself.” [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 8/4/10]

 

  • Arkansas Democrat Gazette Compared Crawford’s Obfuscation to Nixon’s. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette wrote an editorial comparing Crawford’s secrecy surrounding his past debt issues to “shades of Richard Nixon.” [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 8/15/10]

 

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