Reports: Cain used campaign funds to buy autobiography from own company

{mosads}In addition to the book purchases, Cain’s campaign filings show payments to THE New Voice for supplies, lodging and transportation. But while the spending might give some donors pause, the practice is not likely illegal — nor particularly uncommon. Paying a candidate’s own company is relatively rare on the presidential level, but such transfers happen with some frequency in congressional races.

Cain, for his part, saw no issue with the purchase, saying it was part of his campaign’s “unconventional approach” to introduce himself to voters.

“They are buying my books and my pamphlets,” Cain said to Bloomberg. “The campaign is buying them from THE New Voice.”

Cain had come under some fire earlier in the campaign for continuing a planned book tour despite vaulting into the top tier of Republican candidates. At the time, Cain defended the tour as instrumental in his effort to meet voters and convey his policy plans.

“When I can meet [voters] at a book signing and say hello to them, and they go home excited and they’re talking with their friends and relatives, call them all across the country,” Cain said after a signing in Rock Hill, S.C. “So, no, I don’t apologize for these kinds of events at all, and I’m doing more of them as part of the campaign.”