Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal Co-Author Donated $55,000 in Royalty Checks to Charity

Donald Trump’s co-author on the hit business book The Art of the Deal has come to regret his collaboration with the Republican nominee in recent months, and when he got his latest royalty check—$55,000 for the last six months—he donated it to charity.

Specifically, Tony Schwartz sent the money to the National Immigration Law Center, which assists low-income and undocumented immigrants and will share the funds with several other civil rights groups. Schwartz told the Washington Post he’s seen the value of royalty checks for the 1987 book grow over the course of the presidential campaign, and that they “suddenly became, for me, blood money.” He donated his last check, $25,000 for the second half of 2015, to several immigrant rights groups as well as Human Rights Watch and the Center for Victims of Torture.

“I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is,” Schwartz told the New Yorker in a July article. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

[The Washington Post]