Huntsman accused of video conspiracy to smear Ron Paul

A web consulting firm claims that a party close to Jon Huntsman's campaign uploaded an offensive YouTube video to smear rival Ron Paul, according to Politico.

The amateur-looking video, titled "Jon Huntsman's Values," suggests the candidate lacks American values based on his time spent abroad and adoption of children from India and China. The video was uploaded by a user named "NHLiberty4Paul." A corresponding Twitter account publicized the video on January 4, the day both accounts were created and the video was uploaded.

Huntsman responded to the "stupid" video on Friday after it was reported by Breitbart.tv, RedState, Mediaite and several other media outlets.

The NHLiberty4Paul accounts are not affiliated with Paul's official New Hampshire presidential campaign, but many assumed the video was created by a Ron Paul supporter. When the Huffington Post contacted the user, they responded, "Sorry, campaign has asked me not to speak to reporters."

Paul has disavowed the video. But according to the consulting firm CanDo.com, which was commissioned by Ron Paul's presidential campaign, the video may have actually been created by a Huntsman supporter.

"After researching the available evidence, we believe it is likely that the video came from a source within or closely tied to the Huntsman Campaign," they concluded.

Their conclusion rests on the fact that Huntsman’s campaign site, jon2012.com, was one of the first to link to the video.

In its current form, the website does not contain the link, however. CanDo.com speculated that the first link came from jon2012.com but did not appear on the website because "someone used a server on the Jon2012.com domain (such as webmail) to read an email that contained the link to the video."

But the link could have also been added to the website by a page that automatically aggregates thousands of tweets about Huntsman.

"Their latest conspiracy theory is nothing more than an attempt to cover for one of their racist supporters," Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller told Politico.

"The Paul campaign has botched the response to this shameful video from the beginning. Had they simply condemned the video and their supporter, we would be discussing the important issues facing our country. Instead their ridiculous and easily debunked ‘commission report’ will continue to focus attention on this shameful video."

Huntsman has previously attacked Paul with videos portraying him as kooky and unelectable.