Dr. Ben Carson's business manager rushed to his boss's defense on Friday, insisting a Politico article that claims the campaign admits the retired pediatric neurosurgeon lied about having been offered a "full scholarship" to West Point is a distortion of a campaign spokesman's comments.
On Friday,
Politico reports Carson's campaign "conceded" the candidate fabricated a key moment in his best-selling 1996 memoir,
"Gifted Hands," in which he writes he was offered a "full scholarship" to famed military academy after meeting with Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded troops in Vietnam.
Campaign manager Barry Bennett made the comments in question in an email to Politico.
"In the story itself, the campaign does not say Dr. Carson applied to West Point," Williams told
The Washington Post. "Dr. Carson boasts about his scores in ROTC. Westmoreland encourages him to apply. As Dr. Carson says, they were impressed by his scores, but he never applied.
"They said to him, we could get you in. This guy got into Yale -- obviously he could have got in. The headline was a fabrication."
"Williams argued that Politico had written a false headline off of Bennett's accurate quote," the Post reports.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told
Sinclair Broadcasting he does not believe the issue will harm Carson's campaign, and insisted the physician is more honest than Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
"I mean almost everything she says you can find fault with. Let's face it, the Clintons have gotten away with things that have been beyond the pale for years and years," Hatch said.
"And Democrats just say, 'Ah, ho-hum,' and yet you have a man here of impeccable reputation, a decent, honorable person who was at the top of his personal profession, and could very well be president of the United States."
Carson had dismissed CNN's doubts as "garbage" and "a bunch of lies."
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