Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) won’t let his feud with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) go.
The Kentucky senator slammed Christie, without mentioning him by name, in a Senate committee hearing on Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts Wednesday. Paul suggested using taxpayer dollars to fund TV ads that featured a political candidate to promote the Jersey Shore amounted to a “conflict of interest.”
“Some of these ads, people running for office put their mug all over these ads while they’re in the middle of a political campaign,” Paul said, as quoted by ABC News. “In New Jersey, $25 million was spent on ads that included somebody running for political office. You think there might be a conflict of interest there.”
Christie appeared alongside his family in an ad spot called “Stronger Than the Storm” earlier this year, which used money from the $60 billion federal emergency disaster funding given to states affected by the hurricane, according to ABC News. The governor was campaigning for reelection at the time.
Paul pointed out similar ads ran in New York, but said “at least they didn’t put someone’s face on the ads and their family, and it looks like a bio ad,” as quoted by ABC News.
It’s not the first time Paul took a swipe at Christie over Sandy recovery funds. Earlier this year Paul slammed the New Jersey governor’s disaster relief spending for diverting money from national security.
“They’re precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending, and their ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme — give me all my Sandy money now,” he said. “Those are the people who are bankrupting the government and not letting enough money be left over for national defense.”
