Name: Since Jan. 6 riot, Cruz has spent more campaign cash on private security than almost any in Congress
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Since Jan. 6 riot, Cruz has spent more campaign cash on private security than almost any in Congress

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6:00 AM on Apr 22, 2021 CDTWASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz has spent more than almost any other member of Congress on private security since Election Day, drawing $126,000 from his campaign account for security systems and personnel.Only two senators have spent more, and Cruz’s total far eclipses the security outlays of any other Texan in Congress, including those who have stepped up spending on protective equipment and guards since the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.“Sen. Cruz receives a high volume of violent threats and will continue to protect his family,” said spokeswoman Erin Perrine.She declined to elaborate, or say what prompted the sudden investment in security after Election Day.The riot, followed weeks later by Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, have brought a windfall to the VIP protection industry. Lawmakers in both parties have tapped campaign funds to beef up security as passions ran high – nationwide and across the spectrum.Nearly all of Cruz’s security budget has gone to Houston-based Atlas Glinn, whose website features a photo of Cruz flashing a thumbs up during a parade. He’s in a convertible, flanked by two athletic men in suits with pins of some sort in their lapels. The photo blurs the face on one of them. The other, eyes hidden by sunglasses, has the stern, don’t-mess-with-me look a protectee wants in a bodyguard.“We employ experienced agents to protect individuals, celebrities, high-vis clients, diplomats, government officials and traveling clients who require added security and logistics,” Atlas Glinn boasts, adding that its staff includes exceptionally trained Agents, PPO’s (Personal Protection Officers), and Commissioned officers.”Cruz has spent $115,987 since Nov. 10 with Atlas Glinn, averaging $23,000 a month.The Dallas area has an unusually high concentration of Trump supporters arrested for invading the Capitol on Jan. 6, a deadly episode that left lawmakers in both parties shaken.Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat elected to a second term last fall, has spent $11,900 on security since late January.Spokesman Josh Stewart declined to elaborate. “We do not comment on security,” he said.Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat who won a second term last fall, served as one of the House prosecutors during Trump’s first impeachment trial in early 2020. In March, she paid $5,700 to Virginia-based Global Guardian, the first such outlay to show up on her campaign reports.“Global Guardian was contacted by several members of Congress to establish executive protection for themselves and their families” after the attack at the Capitol, the company says on its website. “Our locally-based security teams are comprised of former special forces agents and federal law enforcement.”The company has provided transportation to the Capitol “to ensure a smooth and safe commute” for elected officials.“From protesters heckling outside of their homes to threats surfacing online, individuals needed additional security support” since the Jan. 6 attack, the company says.That includes “static guards at the homes of the Congressmen and Congresswomen,” teams of agents providing round-the-clock protection for some clients, and monitoring of “online threats directed at them or their families.”Congressmen have spent campaign funds on home security since well before the Capitol riot.On Feb. 26, 2020, Dallas-area congressman John Ratcliffe spent $8,872 to install a home security system.Two days later, Trump nominated him to serve as director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe gave up his seat in May after winning confirmation.The Federal Election Commission has allowed such expenditures since 2017, when it ruled that using donations for home security systems needed because of their official duties did not amount to personal use.On March 25, the FEC issued a four page advisory opinion agreeing that it was also OK to spend campaign cash on bodyguards – which by then, many lawmakers were already doing.The Republican House and Senate campaign committees had sought the FEC opinion. Their Jan. 26 request alluded to the Capitol riot, saying that bodyguards were needed “in light of recent developments that have elevated the threat environment facing Members.”A footnote referred to the arrest two days after the riot of a New York man who, according to the FBI, posted a video titled “kill your senators” in which he urged armed insurrectionists to finish the job started on Jan. 6 because “we need to slaughter these [expletive]”.Cruz’s outlays are near the top of the list, though filings for the first quarter of 2021 show two newly elected Democratic senators have spent more on security since Election Day.Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly has spent a whopping $324,000, starting a few days after his narrow victory to fill the two years remaining on the late John McCain’s term.Kelly’s office didn’t respond to queries and he has not explained the outlays.But the former astronaut is acutely aware of the dangers of public office: In January 2011, a gunman shot his wife, Gabby Giffords, in the head as she met with constituents outside a Tucson-area supermarket.She has been a gun control activist since leaving Congress.Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock has paid $233,000 since Election Day to Executive Protection Agencies, an Atlanta-based firm whose website describes a range of services, from bodyguards to “search and eject teams” to help VIPs navigate crowds.Warnock is Georgia’s first black senator and longtime pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pulpit held by Martin Luther King Jr. before his assassination in 1968. Conservative media have mocked Warnock for hiring armed guards even as he demanded gun control after a rampage that left eight people dead last month at Atlanta-area spas.Higher profile lawmakers, like Cruz, are more likely to endure threats.Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. has spent $65,000 on security since Election Day. That includes $1,552 for protection during a Feb. 20 trip to Houston, when she delivered $4 million donated to help Texans reeling from the winter storm that knocked out power for several days.Much of the flurry in security spending is linked directly to the passions reflected in, and stirred by, the riot.Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who raised a fist to salute the mob that would soon invade the Capitol, spent $45,000 on security from his campaign account over the next three weeks.Two days before he led the effort to stymie President Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, protesters gathered outside his home in suburban Vienna, Va.“Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel,” Hawley wrote on Twitter. “They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door. Let me be clear: My family &amp; I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence.”Anti-Trump Republicans have also faced threats.Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah spent $43,633 with Ambolt Security Group, a Utah company run by a former police officer and two former FBI agents.The expenditure is dated Feb. 11 – two days before he and six other GOP senators voted to convict Trump at his post-presidency impeachment trial, suggesting an inkling a backlash might ensue.Indeed, GOP activists in Utah circulated a petition asserting that Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, had “embarrassed” his state and “prioritized his personal and political vendetta” against Trump over his duties to the Constitution and the electorate.Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who also voted to convict Trump, has spent $68,578 on firms that provide closed-circuit security monitoring, personnel and reinforced doors and windows.On Jan. 13, Rep. Liz Cheney was one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot.“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in a statement at the time.As the No. 3 GOP leader, Cheney’s stance drew political and physical threats. Conservatives mustered 61 votes to oust her as conference chair and Trump vowed to help unseat her in next year’s Wyoming primary.Since Jan. 29 she’s spent $58,500 on security, including protection from three former Secret Service agents.Cruz’s beefed up security has been no secret.During his brief excursion to Cancun during the winter storm that knocked out power to millions of Texans, a security guard was spotted at his house, telling New York Magazine that he was caring for the family pooch, Snowflake.It’s unclear if that was an Atlas Glinn employee.Cruz’s office asked Houston police to escort the senator at the airport when he returned from Cancun.Apart from Atlas Glinn, Cruz spent $4,114 with Solar X Window Film Systems, a Houston company that installs “tear and penetration-resistant” film to protect against glass fragments in case of “accident, break-in or violent storm.”That was on Dec. 4, as he spearheaded Trump’s quixotic effort to overturn the defeat.But Cruz was a lightning rod since well before Trump’s defeat.In September 2018, a flash mob of protesters surrounded the senator and his wife, Heidi Cruz, as they were seated at Fiola, an upscale restaurant in Washington. They were protesting his support for Brett Kavanaugh’s soon to be consummated Supreme Court nomination.No other Texan in Congress has come close to Cruz’s level of spending for personal security.No such expenses appear on Sen. John Cornyn’s campaign finance reports.Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat in his ninth term, has spent $18,600 on security since 2017, mostly for equipment. The current pace is about $86 a month, for monitoring, other than a $460 upgrade a month ago.Freshman Rep. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo, a Trump-backed Republican who served as the former president’s White House physician, took advantage of FEC rules just two weeks after taking office, spending $5,300 to install a home security system.That was in late January.Around the same time, the FEC gave El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat, permission to tap her campaign account to upgrade the lighting and wiring around her home and detached garage, noting hat without those upgrades, security cameras recommended by the House Sergeant at Arms would not function properly.She paid $5,478 to ADT Security and Home Depot on security-related expenses.As the commission noted, “Since taking office, you have received numerous direct threats to your safety, which the Capitol Police have investigated.”Receive the latest political news delivered every Tuesday and Thursday from reporters in Austin, Dallas and Washington.By signing up you agree to our

6:00 AM on Apr 22, 2021 CDTWASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz has spent more than almost any other member of Congress on private security since Election Day, drawing $126,000 from his campaign account for security systems and personnel.Only two senators have spent more, and Cruz’s total far eclipses the security outlays of any other Texan in Congress, including those who have stepped up spending on protective equipment and guards since the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.“Sen. Cruz receives a high volume of violent threats and will continue to protect his family,” said spokeswoman Erin Perrine.She...

Since Jan. 6 riot, Cruz has spent more campaign cash on private security than almost any in Congress

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