Ted Cruz Hit With Campaign Complaints Over Book Promotion - Forbes

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Topline

A campaign finance watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday for allegedly misusing campaign funds to promote his 2020 book and then receiving royalty payments from hardcover copies sold through those promotions.

Key Facts

The Campaign Legal Center filed complaints against Cruz with the FEC and the Senate Ethics Committee.

The center alleges Cruz’s campaign committee, Ted Cruz for Senate, spent at least $18,000 of donor funds on Facebook advertisements for his book.

According to the complaints, Cruz received 15% of royalties on each hardcover copy of the book that sold—however, Cruz’s campaign committee disputes this.

Brendan Fischer, Campaign Legal Center’s director of federal reform said, “because Cruz receives royalties from book sales” Cruz “crossed a legal line by spending donor funds on Facebook ads promoting sales of that book.”

An FEC spokesperson told CNBC the group would not comment on “pending litigation”.

Chief Critic

“Senator Cruz’s campaign has closely followed Federal Election Commission laws and guidelines when promoting his book, and he has not received any royalties whatsoever for these book sales,” Chris Gober, attorney for Ted Cruz for Senate, told Forbes in a statement.

Key Background

The FEC does allow candidates and campaign committees to use campaign funds for some promotional items, like a candidate’s book, in specific instances. But the CLC argues other FEC guidelines suggest a candidate cannot use campaign donations to build personal financial gain—like making money on royalties through a book promotion. According to the CLC’s review of Facebook’s advertisements, the book promotions ran for several weeks last fall around the time Cruz’s book, “One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History,” was published on Sept. 29.