Top ethics lawyer slams Ted Cruz over​ 'openly corrupt' admission that he 'sells access' to government

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, now 50, has spent much of his career vigorously defending corporate America. But now that Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, Dell Computer and other major companies are speaking out against GOP voter suppression bills, Cruz is railing against "woke" corporations and threatening to punish them via the United States' tax code. And Walter Shaub, who headed the U.S. Government Office of Ethics under President Barack Obama, is slamming Cruz's threat as "openly corrupt."

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on April 28, Cruz wrote, "This time, we won't look the other way on Coca-Cola's $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time, when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multibillion-dollar antitrust exception, we'll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we'll simply let the Export-Import Bank expire."

The very fact that Cruz is using the term "corporate welcome" in 2021 is ironic. In the past, that term was used primarily by liberals and progressives — and Fox News' Sean Hannity was among the far-right Republicans who claimed that there was no such thing as corporate welcome. But that was before Trumpism, with its pseudo-populism, overtook the GOP.

On May 2, Shaub slammed Cruz on Twitter, posting:

Here are some other comments from Cruz critics that have been posted on Twitter: