title:  Trump Caught Illegally Buying $55,000 Worth Of His Own Book… With Campaign Donations
text: Donald Trump has been caught buying $55,000 worth of his own books and he paid this hefty bill with money from campaign donations, which is flat out illegal if he gets any royalties from the sales.As reported by The Daily Beast: On May 10, the Trump campaign paid Barnes & Noble $55,055, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. That amounts to more than 3,500 copies of the hardcover version of Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, or just over 5,000 copies of the renamed paperback release, Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America. According to a spokesperson for Trump, these books were purchased for gift bags given to delegates at the Republican National Convention. Indeed, delegates did each receive a copy of Crippled America along with miscellaneous Make America Great Again gear and a plastic fetus, all neatly stuffed into tote bags bearing the same trademark slogan.But here is where the problem lies, under Federal Elections Committee rules, Trump cannot legally be paid royalties on the books bought by the campaign. Paul Ryan (not the one you are thinking of), from the nonpartisan nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, explains: It s fine for a candidate s book to be purchased by his committee, but it s impermissible to receive royalties from the publisher,  Ryan said.  That amounts to an illegal conversion of campaign funds to personal use. There s a well established precedent from the FEC that funds from the campaign account can t end up in your own pocket. Neither the Trump campaign nor the book s publisher, Simon & Schuster, has been willing to comment. Regardless, federal campaign law clearly states that campaign spending cannot  result in the conversion of campaign funds to the personal use of the candidate or any other person. It may be the case for a candidate to instead donate those royalties to charity that might be a permissible arrangement,  said the CLC s Ryan.  But the bottom line is, no money of this $55,000 from the book can end up in Donald Trump s pocket without violating federal law. It isn t exactly unusual for celebrities or politicians to buy copies of their own books, or to give them away. However, Ben Bruton, who has spent the past 25 years working in publishing public relations, the circumstances surrounding Trump s purchase is suspicious. What any author that I know would most likely do is go to the publisher and say,  I want a bunch of these in the goody bag.  [The author would] come to the publisher and say he needed books for a charity or an event, and we would donate 500 all the time. And we ll sell more to you at a 40 percent discount,  said Bruton. The red flag, I think, would be that they re trying to get back on The[New York] Times Best Sellers list, or they re trying to buy them at retail for royalties. If Trump s books were bought at a brick and mortar store like Barnes and Noble, then they will count towards best-seller lists. I ve worked at four different of the major six publishing houses and a lot of times people want to buy a bunch of books to get on the list. You can t do it from Amazon. You can t buy them from the publisher,  said Bruton.  Only buying from place likes Barnes & Noble at full price is looked at as sales. Bruton added that at least the Times list is aware of the possibility of authors buying their way to the top with bulk sales and has penalties in place to prevent this. That s how the Times keeps that sort of in check, so you can t just buy your way onto the Best Sellers list,  he said. However, I do believe that was definitely an attempt to both make money and to get onto the best-seller list,  Bruton added.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images