(PatriotWise.com)- Last Tuesday, former President Donald Trump announced that 100,000 copies of his expensive picture book were now available for purchase.
On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Trump’s money-making venture came at the expense of the White House photographer who took all the pictures that appear in his expensive picture book.
Toward the end of his presidency, Trump White House photographer Shealah Craighead informed White House aides that she intended to publish a book featuring a collection of her most memorable White House photos. This is something every White House photographer since Ronald Reagan has done, often with the full-throated support of the former president. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama were so supportive that they wrote the foreword to their photographers’ books.
But that was not the case for Shealah Craighead.
First aides to Trump asked Craighead for a cut of her book advance payment in exchange for Trump writing the foreword to the book and helping her promote it. Then they told her to hold off on her plans entirely to allow the former President to go through her photos and take the ones he wanted to publish in his own book, which now sells for as much as $230 a copy.
According to the New York Times, the profits from “Craighead’s labor” are going directly into Trump’s pocket.
One ethics professional is critical of the former president’s relentless need to monetize everything he does.
Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School recently pointed out that Trump’s profit-making ventures aren’t being run through his family business, but instead, are operated from the taxpayer-funded government office he is provided through the Former Presidents Act.
Tillipman, who teaches anti-corruption, said Trump is using the presidency as “one giant business center.” While it isn’t unusual for former presidents to sign book deals after leaving office, Tillipman said it is “abnormal to literally profit off of absolutely everything that you’re doing.”
Tillipman conceded that the Former Presidents Act may not specifically bar former President Trump’s “cash grabs,” but added that some things may not be prohibited, but they still look bad. And Trump, she said, “just doesn’t care about the appearance issue.”
