It was Monday morning when Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump tweeted the following:
I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2016
Wednesday during Cubs' spring training in Mesa, Arizona, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts discussed the accusation.
“It’s a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom,” Ricketts said (CBS Chicago). “The fact is whether it’s my mom or my dad on his Ending Spending stuff or my sister on marriage equality issues or my brothers and what they do or what we do with the team, we are pretty much an open book. We stand up for what we believe in. We support the causes we think are important. That is what America should be. That is who we are.”
As you can see, Ricketts mentions the Ending Spending Super-PAC, which is run by Joe (Tom's father) and Todd (Tom's brother). Further, as CBS Chicago reports, Joe and Marlene (Joe's wife, Tom's mother) contributed $3 million to Our Principles PAC, which has an anti-Trump aim.
So the Cubs' day-to-day operations guy is Tom and he's involved in none of this while some of his other family members have been spending anti-Trump money -- just not secretly.
As for the family having something to hide:
“If we had something to hide, you people would have found it by now,” Tom Ricketts said (CBS Chicago). “I have no idea (what Trump was warning of).”
