Ted Cruz Used Campaign Funds to Promote Book

According to The Daily Beast, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz used money obtained for his campaign last year to promote his own book, One Vote Away: How A Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History. Using campaign funds for promoting his book violates federal law.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) states that candidates are not allowed to use campaign money for their own financial benefit, this includes promoting items that generate private income, including publishing royalties.

Back in September and October of last year, Facebook’s page Ted Cruz for Senate promoted 17 ads sponsoring Cruz’s book. Facebook catalogued those publications in its political ads library, where a video of Cruz appears asking viewers to purchase his book from various book-selling websites, featuring links to landing pages on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million. Amazon’s listing link reads, “Buy my book.”

“Campaign committees can only be used to engage in bona fide campaign activities, not personal and commercial enterprises, and by explicitly telling his followers to ‘Buy my new book!’ and linking to bookseller pages for doing that, Cruz appears to have violated the campaign finance laws his campaign is bound to follow.” said Jenna Grande, press secretary for government accountability group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.“This looks like exactly what you’re not supposed to do.”

Unlike hiding behind his daughters when he fled Texas during the ice storm, or, apparently, helping to incite an insurrection on the U.S. capitol building by repeating conspiracy theories about fraudulent elections, using campaign funds to purchase Facebook ads that say “Buy my book” may be illegal.