The fact is that if a book is given away for a donation, it is not “sold.” True, the IRS says you must deduct the value of anything received in exchange for a donation, but it still doesn’t make that a true sale.

Newsom’s book stunt is unethical without being illegal, for which he gets the sound of one hand clapping from me.

In 1988, Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright was felled for improprieties related to the sale of his book “Reflections of a Public Man.” He was accused of selling the book in bulk to a handful of supporters as a means of skirting federal election laws which capped individual campaign contributions at $1,000. Then Newt Gingrich, who helped bring down Wright for his book shenanigans, was later forced to give up a $4.5 million advance for two books about conservative ideology to avoid the “appearance of cashing in on his party’s victory in the November elections.”

In 2009, Sarah Palin used $63,000 from her political action committee to buy thousands of copies of her memoir, “Going Rogue,” from her publisher, HarperCollins, to send them to donors. She then used money from her PAC to buy $8,000 of bookmarks and to reimburse HarperCollins $20,000 in travel expenses for her personal photographer and an aide, whom she brought on her book tour. Palin’s PAC probably spent more money on her book than on donations to political candidates.

Remember Herman Cain, briefly a “rising star” in the GOP firmament? While running as a Republican Presidential candidate in 2011, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza used $64,000 from his campaign funds to pay T.H.E. New Voice Inc., a motivational-speaking company he owned, for thousands of copies of his books. He distributed his books to donors.

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Source: New York Times 1, 2