Huckabee campaign downplays disappearing Duggar endorsement: They were just old

Mike Huckabee, ultra-conservative Christian, presidential candidate and until now unquestioning supporter of the Duggars, has explained why Jim Bob and Michelle's endorsements were scrubbed from his campaign website early this week.

They were just old.

"The old ones were routed out on June 1," a campaign spokesperson told ABC News. "That has always been the plan."

An archived version of Huckabee's website shows the Duggars prominently at the top of his endorsement list. "Governor Huckabee is a man of faith who is very wise, and will help get our nation back on track," Michelle Duggar's endorsement read.

At some point Monday, the endorsements were taken down, Talking Points Memo reported. On Wednesday, the Duggar parents gave a harshly-criticized interview to Fox News' Megyn Kelly about their eldest son Josh molesting five underage girls - including his sisters - when he was a teen.

On May 22, Huckabee threw his support behind the Duggars with 361-word religiously-inspired Facebook post, in which he said, "Janet and I love Jim Bob and Michelle and their entire family. They are no more perfect a family than any family, but their Christian witness is not marred in our eyes because following Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection."

Huckabee didn't respond yesterday to ABC's questions about whether the Duggars would join him on the campaign trail. At a press event Wednesday, when asked the same question, he responded, ""I don't know. It will be up to them. Ask them, I don't know."

The former Arkansas governor came under fire himself for comments he made earlier this year belittling transgender people, insinuating identifying as female would have allowed him to ogle nude female classmates.

“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today,'” the Des Moines Register reported.