GOP candidate Ron Paul signed off on racist 90s newsletters

Washington, Jan.28 (ANI): Ron Paul, who is a well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian, has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas.

According to CBS News, the Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.

But people close to Paul's operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul and Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

"It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it," said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul's company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.

Jesse Benton, a presidential campaign spokesman, said that the accounts of Paul's involvement were untrue and that Paul was practicing medicine full time when "the offensive material appeared under his name."

Paul "abhors it, rejects it and has taken responsibility for it as he should have better policed the work being done under his masthead," Benton said.

He did not comment on Paul's business strategy.

Mark Elam, a longtime Paul associate whose company printed the newsletters, said Paul "was a busy man" at the time.

"He was in demand as a speaker; he was traveling around the country," Elam said in an interview coordinated by Paul's campaign.

"I just do not believe he was either writing or regularly editing this stuff." (ANI)