The Republican National Committee and three other organizations spent $1 million on bulk book purchases for Republican candidates.
According to The Wrap, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $400,000 on 25,500 copies of Representative Dan Crenshaw’s memoir, “Fortitude,” the Senate Conservatives Fund spent $90,000 on Senator Tom Cotton’s “Sacred Duty,” and $65,000 on Senator Josh Hawley’s “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” and the RNC spent nearly $400,000 on two books by Donald Trump Jr.
The purchases boosted the authors to bestseller lists.
The Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog group, filed a complaint with the FEC and the Senate Ethics Committee over campaign funds being used to promote Senator Ted Cruz’s book, “One Vote Away.”
“By using campaign funds to promote purchases of his book, there is reason to believe that Ted Cruz for Senate violated the ban on the personal use of campaign funds,” the complaint says.
“When elected officials use campaign contributions to advance their personal bottom lines, they compromise the integrity of the political process and undermine the public’s trust that their political contributions are being used legally, for campaign purposes or in connection with the officeholder’s duties, not to line the officeholder’s pockets,” a letter written by the watchdog group to the Senate Ethics Committee said. “Senator Cruz has violated core principles of accountable government by using campaign funds to promote the sale of his book. As such, the Ethics Committee should reassure the public that the Senate enforces its well-established rules and laws that guard against corruption by conducting a swift investigation to identify and hold Senator Cruz accountable for any ethics violations.”
