The Hill News

Herman Cain reportedly used funds from his Republican presidential campaign to buy his own books and supplies from his motivational speaking company, according to reports in Bloomberg and Talking Points Memo.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Cain's campaign bought $36,511 in books and paid $64,000 total to THE New Voice, Cain's Georgia-based company. The books are being given away to supporters of and donors to the campaign â€" a practice that is relatively ordinary on the campaign t! rail, and has been ruled permissible by the FEC as long as candidates donate any profits they make from the sale of the books to charity. But the sale of the books by Cain's own company, rather than directly from the publisher, is raising eyebrows about whether Cain is indirectly profiting from campaign contributions.

“All candidates publish books, and they offer them as premiums to donors, but most candidates aren’t buying them from their own companies,” Bill Allison, director of the Sunlight Foundation, told Bloomberg. “It raises the question of his campaign contributions ending up in his own pocket.”

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