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- Sen. Ron Johnson told Insider in May that he had "no intentions" of recouping old campaign loans.
- But before that, he'd already done so — receiving $400,000 from his campaign after raising money for it.
- It's entirely legal, thanks to a Supreme Court case brought by fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
Over the last year, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has indicated in both campaign filings and on his 2022 financial disclosure that his campaign now owes him more than $8.4 million.
The entirety of that sum originally came from Johnson's own wallet — a wealthy former plastics executive, the Wisconsin Republican self-funded much of his first campaign for Senate in 2010, and spent some of his own funds on subsequent campaigns as well.
But federal campaign finance laws had long severely restricted his ability to pay himself back for that money, owing to fears that if candidates raised money for personal debt repayment after they had already been elected, it could open the door to corruption.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas challenged those restrictions, eventually escalating the case all the way to the Supreme Court. And last June, he won — the court struck down that provision of the law, making it legal for politicians like Johnson to raise money that would ultimately go directly into their pockets.
When asked by Insider in May if he would seek to recoup any of those loans, Johnson indicated that he wouldn't.
"I'm not expecting to be paid back, you just have to report it now," he said. "I don't have any expectation to get paid back."
"I'd actually have to go raise it," he later added. "I have no intentions of doing that."
But according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission that were first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin senator had already repaid himself $400,000 in old loans less than two weeks earlier.
That included a total of $210,000 to repay loans he made during his 2010 campaign, and $190,000 to repay loans he made during his 2016 campaign.
And Johnson has been sending dozens of emails to supporters in recent months asking them to help retire his campaign debts.
"Thanks to you I survived a bruising campaign battle with the Left," reads one email. "But winning took everything I had, and more. I took on some campaign debt, and now it's time to pay it off."
Asked about the apparent discrepancy in what he told Insider versus the loan repayments he had already made, Johnson said in a statement to Insider that the loan repayment was "primarily against the original loan amount allowed prior to the Cruz ruling," which was $250,000.
"There is little expectation that the loan amount acknowledged after the Cruz ruling will ever be repaid," he added.
As to whether he would seek to recoup the old loans, a spokesperson for Johnson simply said the senator would "continue to fully comply with campaign finance laws."
His campaign staff have insisted that the senator, when he spoke with Insider, was addressing the question of whether he would seek to recoup the entirety of the sum that he's legally entitled to, not whether he would seek to recoup any funds at all.
Federal Election Commission
Cruz, who repaid himself $550,000 after winning the Supreme Court case, previously defended the notion that Johnson would fundraise to retire the debts.
"If he wants to pay himself back, I think that's fantastic," Cruz said in May. "It's his own money. There's nothing corrupt.
"It is perfectly reasonable that Ron Johnson, after 10 years of making an interest-free loan to the American people, can pay back his own money," Cruz added.