Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) Bulk purchases have been the *bane* of bestseller lists since such lists began appearing.

A book that sells 5,000 hardcovers in a week can make the NYT list.

*Minimum* first-week bulk purchases of Don Jr.'s book:

TURNING POINT: 2,000
NRCC: 2,500
NRSC: 2,500
RNC: 3,333

1/ Those organizations *alone*, using *only* their *minimum* known bulk purchases for the book's first week (and assuming they always paid full price) purchased *well* over 10,000 copies. In a typical week, that number of purchases *alone* would put Jr.'s book in the NYT's top 3.

2/ But those four organizations are only four of *nine* the NYT was able to identify—in just a cursory review—that made bulk purchases to aid Don Jr.'s book. If just 4 organizations bought (at a *minimum*) 10,333 copies—enough to vault Jr. into the NYT top 3—how many did *9* buy?

3/ And of course we've every reason to think the number of right-wing organizations secretly aiding the Trumps to scam the publishing industry and US readers is actually *much* higher than 9—especially as the organizations we *do* know of appear to have lied about what they did.

4/ The RNC lied. Don Jr.'s publisher gave conflicting statements before/after the bulk purchases were detailed by the NYT. Turning Point USA put a notice above their stockroom of bulk purchases—textbook cronyism honoring their party's leader—that read, "Capitalism Not Cronyism."

5/ I won't try to estimate how many "readers" of a book that @DonaldJTrumpJr had ghostwritten for him the Republican Party bribed—by attaching its "sale" to either events or donation drives—but this much is *clear*: it's *more* than enough to vault Trump Jr. into the NYT #1 spot.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 6/ Why does it matter? Well, the data we have indicate Jr., the RNC, and the GOP establishment broadly writ *knew in advance* the book would be #1 on the NYT list, as their pre-planned bulk purchases were enough to ensure that result.

Then they crafted a public campaign of lies.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 7/ Don Jr. went on Twitter to promote the idea he was engaging in a grassroots campaign to get his book to #1 on the NYT list—though he would've already known it was going to happen. So what was the point of the campaign? To defraud the US into thinking it was an organic result.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 8/ Who participated in this small-f "fraud"? Well, the Republican Party—at the highest level. Now ask yourself this question: does that sound familiar? The Trump family and the GOP working secretly to make a fraud seem legitimate, and then lying to the press and America about it?

@DonaldJTrumpJr 9/ Don Jr.'s book release is the GOP under Trump writ large: a series of system-wide scams that aren't just lied about but *deliberately* orchestrated to make them seem the result of grassroots support. But it's even more insidious than that—as Don Jr. has political ambitions.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 10/ That's right: the NYT and others have noted that Trump Jr.'s book was given the sort of rollout future political candidates get, and sure enough, within days of the ghostwritten book "hitting #1" we heard reports Jr. was considering running for Governor of Montana or Florida.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 11/ Not to put too fine a point on it, TRIGGERED—the ghostwritten book just published by @DonaldJTrumpJr—was intended to launch Jr. as a public political figure rather than the "private citizen" the NYT notes he called himself weeks ago. And the public launch was a public *scam*.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 12/ We're looking at the launching of a would-be Trump dynasty: successive presidents that are members of the same family of autocrats, just the sort of risible collapse of democracy that marks so many tinpot dictatorships around the world. Such regimes *always* start with scams.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 13/ The scam that marks the release of Don Jr.'s first book is an opportunity for us to name the scam that eventually (it hopes) leads to autocracy *at the moment it happens*. The moment, of course, is a small one—esoteric, unimportant on its face—but it spools up a longer cycle.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 14/ Don Jr. and the GOP had *no* faith his book would sell, so they *ensured* it'd hit #1 on the NYT list, then lied about it. The story they're selling now—it would've made the list either way!—should sound familiar: it's the same line Trump Sr. is using about soliciting bribes.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 15/ Trump and his allies say, "Ukraine ended up getting the money anyway!" and other "defenses" that are *not*, actually, defenses to the sort of public fraud that bribery is. Now Trump's son is saying "I would have made the list anyway!" as a "defense" to his *own* public fraud.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 16/ Of course, the whole *point* of a fraud is to produce a result; Trump's solicitation of bribery aimed to help produce a specific result *even if the bribe never actually went through*. Even the *ask* sent a message. Just so, Jr. gamed the system so it'd "work out" either way.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 17/ In response to this fraud, the NYT said it was helpless: it put a dagger symbol next to Trump Jr.'s book to indicate bulk purchases—but even as its own reporting showed those ineligible purchases were in the *five figures*, it said it wouldn't review Don Jr.'s list placement.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 18/ If this whole story is an esoteric microcosm of broader trends in the development of autocratic regimes, the inaction of the NYT in the face of its own reports stands in for the way the media—at least U.S. media, at least right now—is helpless before the Trumps' public scams.

@DonaldJTrumpJr 19/ When Trump Jr. runs for Governor of Montana or Governor of Florida as a stepping-stone to the presidency—presumably with an interlude in which Ivanka runs for the White House—you better believe that you'll hear a lot about how (among other things) he's a "bestselling author."

@DonaldJTrumpJr 20/ We still don't know the full extent of the Trump/GOP scam on the publishing industry and US readers—and that too has become par for the course with Trump, the GOP, and the media. But I fear this small, seemingly insignificant story is another harbinger of things to come. /end

@DonaldJTrumpJr CLARIFICATION/ The tiny stock of data we have confirms Jr. and the GOP knew his book would at least be in the Top 3 of the NYT list. Prorating the data and considering the ways we know it's incomplete suggest a pre-determined "top" placement—but that *does* require extrapolation.

@DonaldJTrumpJr NOTE/ The reason I question whether it's wise to discuss extrapolation is that the Trumps and the GOP are *responsible* for the need for extrapolation. *They're* hiding data *they* have that'd resolve the issue—even as they say the *public* data confirms Jr. would be #1 "anyway."

@DonaldJTrumpJr NOTE2/ In other words, if the Trumps and the GOP had actually been *confronted* by the NYT with possible removal from the list—as *should've* happened—they would've been *forced* to disclose whether or not their *private* data confirms their *public* claims about Jr.'s placement.

@DonaldJTrumpJr NOTE3/ In this sense, too, the Trumps' publishing scam calls to mind the impeachment inquiry—specifically, former federal prosecutor Adam Schiff's perfectly reasonable and professional references to the "negative inferences" that we can draw from lies and the withholding of data.

@DonaldJTrumpJr NOTE4/ That is, not only won't the GOP reveal Trump Sr.'s role in *ordering* NYT-list-prohibited bulk purchases—more echoes of every *other* Trump scandal—but they *also* hide evidence even as they point to presumptively wrong *public* data. It's all Trump scandals in a nutshell.

@DonaldJTrumpJr NOTE5/ I should add—as many reading this won't know it—that the NYT list's prohibition against the consideration of bulk purchases for "bestseller list" placement is *universally known* in publishing.

The Trumps, GOP, and Don Jr.'s publisher knew these were ineligible purchases.