Audit: Cruz did not properly disclose Goldman Sachs loans in 2012

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated with a comment from Cruz's spokeswoman.}

WASHINGTON — The agency that oversees federal elections said on Thursday that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz incorrectly disclosed several loans from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to his 2012 underdog campaign for U.S. Senate. 

Members of the Federal Election Commission approved a staff audit stating that the Cruz Senate campaign did not disclose to voters $1.1 million in loans from the large banks in his campaign finance filings. The announcement came in the form of the audit posted on the FEC website.

At the time Cruz was running for Senate, his wife, Heidi Cruz, was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Both that bank and Citigroup accepted bailout money during the 2008 financial crisis and have since been the source of much political controversy. 

The unanimous vote by all five commissioners is unusual for the FEC, which is known as one of the most gridlocked arms of the federal government. 

The FEC audit comes well over a year after the issue flared up during Cruz's 2016 run for the GOP presidential nomination. In the heat of the early nomination fight, Cruz described the mistake as a "technical and inadvertent filing error." A spokeswoman at the time said the senator reached out to the commission to remedy the problem. 

"This is old news — simply the conclusion of the same inadvertent reporting error that was widely reported during the presidential campaign," Cruz spokesperson Catherine Frazier said in a written statement.

"Our campaign has been working with the FEC, in a process that actually started several years ago, to determine what amendments should be made to our campaign finance reports from the 2011-12 election cycle," Frazier added. "These loans have been properly disclosed on the Senator's public financial disclosure forms since day one, and we will now begin the process of amending how they are reported on the FEC reports now that the audit process has concluded."

No penalty has been imposed at this point.