Pat Sullivan / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Texas, Arizona, and Nebraska corrections officials bought and attempted to illegally import execution drugs from a man in India named Chris Harris, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Harris, a man without a pharmaceutical background, has sold execution drugs at least six different times. Each time, after questions are raised about the legality of the sale, his drugs have gone unused. This time, the FDA has insisted that it will not even allow his drugs to be delivered into the U.S.

BuzzFeed News reported Thursday that the Arizona and Texas departments of corrections attempted to illegally import sodium thiopental, an anesthetic no longer in use in the U.S., from India this July for use in executions.

Although Harris advertises his company, Harris Pharma, as a drug manufacturer, FDA records regarding the Arizona and Texas shipments show the sodium thiopental he sold was made by a different company called Health Biotech Limited, which is also in India.

An employee of Health Biotech who only identified himself as Vinod confirmed to BuzzFeed News that they manufactured sodium thiopental for Harris Pharma to export. He said the company only made it for Harris, while he marketed it as his own. "We don't know what he does with the product," Vinod said.

BuzzFeed News traveled to Harris’s business locations in August and discovered the facility he registered with the FDA as a facility that manufactures or processes drugs is actually a small rented office, and that the business address he lists on Drug Enforcement Administration forms is a residential apartment he no longer lives in.

Despite this, Harris has sold execution drugs illegally to at least three states this year: Texas, Arizona, and Nebraska. Records show Arizona and Nebraska each paid Harris $26,700 for 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental. Texas officials have said information about their deal with Harris is confidential under state law. Asked whether information about any payments to Harris are confidential, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Jason Clark told BuzzFeed News that it could file an open records request regarding this information..

If the intended shipment to Texas also was 1,000 vials — the minimum order, he told Nebraska officials — that would mean Harris attempted to ship enough anesthetic to the U.S. this year for roughly 1,000 executions total.

If Texas paid the same amount, that would mean Harris made more than $80,000 selling execution drugs that the states are likely to never receive.

The FDA has consistently maintained that importing sodium thiopental would be illegal, but the states proceeded regardless. FDA records first reported on Thursday by BuzzFeed News show that two shipments of sodium thiopental made their way to the Phoenix and Houston airports in late July.

On Friday, TDCJ's Clark told BuzzFeed News that, after obtaining an import license from the DEA prior to the shipment, TDCJ filed the required notice with the agency of the anticipated shipment.

After the shipments were held upon arrival, Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan wrote to the FDA in August, asking them to release the drugs.

“The Department will not use, or attempt to use, the cargo until it is either unconditionally released by FDA or the Department is otherwise permitted to do so by a Court Order, whichever comes first,” Ryan wrote. “I am writing to advise you that we need to take possession of the shipment.”

The FDA was not persuaded. Domenic Veneziano, who heads the FDA division that handles imports, replied, “FDA has determined that this shipment should not be allowed to move to destination at this time and thus will not be requesting that CBP lift its detention.”

For its part, Texas isn’t giving up yet, with TDCJ's Clark telling BuzzFeed News on Friday that it “is going through internal proceedings set up for addressing the lawful status of imports with the Food and Drug Administration and is awaiting their decision.”

The FDA confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Friday that it was still holding the shipments.

“Courts have concluded that sodium thiopental for the injection in humans is an unapproved drug and may not be imported into the country for this purpose. FDA has notified the state correctional facilities of the status of their respective shipments,” spokesperson Jeff Ventura wrote.

Asked whether, given the FDA's repeated statements that such importation of sodium thiopental would not be allowed, TDCJ is challenging that position, TDCJ's Clark responded, "We disagree with your characterization of the FDA's statement as to the legality of importing sodium thiopental, we are appealing the detention of the drugs through the FDA’s internal proceedings."

LINK: This Is The Man In India Who Is Selling States Illegally Imported Execution Drugs

At the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner — the place where Barack Obama’s ascent truly started — Clinton made the case she’ll further his legacy, and Sanders cast himself as another outsider.

View Entire List ›

“Black Americans, on the other hand, find it almost impossible to think about ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’ in anything but racial terms — because of our nation’s historical record of unfairness and injustice to our race,” Carson wrote in the book The Big Picture.

Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images

In his 1999 book, Dr. Ben Carson wrote that our nation's history on racial injustices made it impossible for the black community to think of the judicial system in anything but racial terms and that white Americans were only able to view racial violence in a modern context.

In his book, The Big Picture, released by Zondervan, Carson argued white Americans had "no grasp on the history of racial violence in this country." Carson wrote of a time his mother was thrown in jail for a minor traffic violation as an example of personal history of the racial injustice in criminal justice system.

Carson, who talked about how the incident shaped his own view of the Black Lives Matter movement in an interview with BuzzFeed News earlier this month, was writing about the different racial reactions to the O.J. Simpson case.

"Black Americans, on the other hand, find it almost impossible to think about 'fairness' or 'justice' in anything but racial terms — because of our nation's historical record of unfairness and injustice to our race," wrote Carson. "As I said in the previous chapter, no matter how often we are told we need to 'get over' the past, white people need to understand these things are not easy for us to forget."

Carson noted white Americans view racial violence only in a modern context.

"White people think of racial violence in a modern context — such as the black riots that erupted in the wake of the Rodney King verdict," he wrote. "They have no grasp on the history of racial violence in this country — as illustrated by their total unawareness of what Newsweek (Dec. 8, 1997) admitted were 'two [facts] that every American should know. Between 1885 and 1900, at least 2,500 blacks were lynched or murdered as the KKK consolidated its hold on the post-Reconstruction South. In 1741, 14 slaves were burned at the stake and 18 others were hanged because of fears of a slave revolt— in New York City.'"

Carson cited an example of his own personal history with racial injustice, an arrest of his mother for frivolous charges.

"Too many other incidents of injustice are not merely ancient history, but personal history, even current events, for the majority of black people. I remember in Boston when I was a child, my older cousins, sons of the aunt and uncle who took our family in, were arrested and thrown into jail for some minor infraction of the law. When one of my cousins protested that abuse, he was beaten so severely by the police that he almost died. I vividly remember seeing the results of that beating. A few years ago, when my own mother questioned a policeman who stopped her for a routine traffic violation in a Detroit suburb, the officer angrily told her she met the description of a woman wanted for abducting an elderly couple. He promptly arrested her, had her car impounded, and threw her into jail. I had to call a lawyer friend of mine, a fellow Yale alumnus, who used his contacts as a senior partner in a major Detroit law firm to get her released and to see that the bogus charges were dismissed.

Asked about how that personal history shaped his view of the Black Lives Matter movement earlier this month, Carson told BuzzFeed News the criminal justice system could be "improved upon."

"Well, I recognize that there are, you know, inappropriate actions done by policemen, just like there are inappropriate actions done by doctors, nurses, teachers, even journalists. It doesn't make all of them bad, and it doesn't create an overall impression of them all," Carson said.

"And I think it's probably not the most reasonable position to take — that because you have a police officer that does something bad that all the police are bad," he continued. "Having said that, do we always need to always be vigilant and pay attention to the justice system? Absolutely. Do we need to look at, you know, mandatory incarceration of people involved in nonviolent crimes? Of course we do. We don't want to send them to a university to make them into more hardened criminals. So yeah, all of these things are things that could be improved upon."

In 1999, Carson noted most black Americans could cite similar personal experiences of injustice.

"Most black people can cite similar personal experiences of injustice. President Clinton's commission on race specifically cited the injustice of 'racial profiling,' which many police use to identify potential criminals," wrote Carson. "It is employed most often in traffic stops, for a crime sometimes derisively referred to in the African-American community as 'driving while black.'"

"Statistics support what many blacks have never doubted, that our justice system metes out different treatment to blacks and whites," Carson continued. "The disproportionate percentage of black murderers versus white murderers who receive the death penalty is just one example. The 1998 race commission report cited another when it urged the president to reduce the disparity in sentences for crimes involving powdered cocaine and its concentrated form, crack. The board said longer sentences for crimes involving crack, largely involving poor, black, or Hispanic offenders are 'morally and intellectually indefensible.'"

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

In the six months since Marco Rubio launched his presidential bid, he and his aides have worked diligently to cultivate a squeaky-clean public image for their campaign. They boast that they don't employ opposition researchers to dig up dirt on opponents. They proudly decline to comment on petty insider "process stories." And the candidate himself resolutely avoids feuding with his primary rivals, often proclaiming, "I am not running against any of my fellow Republicans."

Yet, Rubio also has a campaign manager who describes politics as a "knife fight."

With fewer than 100 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, Republican campaigns are bracing for a new, survival-of-the-fittest phase to take hold in the 2016 primary race, as presidential predators seek frantically to claw their way up the food chain, and devour each other along the way. For all Rubio's talk of wanting to stay above of the fray, the candidate has surrounded himself with political operatives known for thriving in the most viciously Darwinian races.

The Rubio campaign is being helmed by a combative strategist, Terry Sullivan, who once (allegedly) dispatched interns dressed in prison stripes to crash a 2007 Mike Huckabee rally and protest the former governor's controversial parole record.

Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan

Twitter

The leading pro-Rubio super PAC is headed by Warren Tompkins, an infamous South Carolina operative who was widely suspected of orchestrating a whisper campaign during the 2000 Republican presidential primaries to convince voters that John McCain was hiding a black love child.

And in a more recent episode that could have lasting political repercussions in next year's primaries, Rubio's chief digital strategist, Wesley Donehue, is said to have actively hyped unsubstantiated rumors in 2010 that Nikki Haley had an affair with a local South Carolina blogger.

All three of these operatives in Rubio’s orbit have roots in South Carolina’s notoriously noxious political scene, where down-and-dirty campaign tactics are not only tolerated but often celebrated as tributes to the legacy of Lee Atwater — the legendary, impish GOP strategist who masterminded campaign victories for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

"South Carolina is known for its viper-pit political culture, dirty tricks, and all that stuff,” said journalist Corey Hutchins, who covered the state for many years. But, he said, the strategists now working for Rubio always seemed especially mesmerized by the local mythology around mudslinging and mischief-making. "Terry Sullivan and Wesley Donehue worked together at one point in a consulting firm in downtown Columbia, and I'm pretty sure I remember a Lee Atwater poster on the wall in Wesley's office. I bet there were a lot of political consultants there who mistook it for a mirror."

In the political genealogy of the Palmetto State, Sullivan is a third-generation Atwater-ite. His mentor, Tompkins, was a protege of the late strategist who quickly earned his own reputation for dirty tricks. In 2000, while leading George W. Bush's campaign in South Carolina, Tompkins was accused of commissioning an anonymous “push poll” asking voters whether they would still support McCain if they knew he had “fathered an illegitimate black child.” (McCain has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter.)

Warren Tompkins, who leads a pro-Rubio super PAC

First Tuesday Strategies / Via firsttuesdaystrategies.com

Tompkins declined an interview request from BuzzFeed News, and the Bush campaign denied any knowledge of the poll at the time — but the contest would be remembered as one of the ugliest in modern political history, solidifying the state's reputation for ruthless, shadowy politicking.

Under Tompkins' tutelage, Sullivan developed a penchant for the political dark arts. In 2007, he and Donehue went to work for Mitt Romney's South Carolina campaign, where they did the sort of work that the starchy, Boston-based strategists in Romney high command wouldn't touch.

“We tried to explain to the folks in Boston early on that it’s a little different here,” Sullivan told a reporter in 2007. “It’s kind of a knife fight.”

When an anonymous website cropped up during that race ridiculing actor-turned-senator-turned-candidate Fred Thompson with taunts like, “Once a pro-choice skirt chaser, now standard bearer of the religious right?” it was revealed to be Donehue's handiwork. The Romney camp swiftly disavowed the site, while Thompson called for heads to roll. It was a misfire for the up-and-coming operatives — but it hardly left them gun-shy.

These days when GOP politicos in South Carolina are asked to describe Sullivan's approach to political campaigns, they promptly do two things: request anonymity, and unleash a torrent of violent (and anatomical) cliches: cutthroat, smash-mouth, bare-knuckled, sharp-elbowed.

"He's not gonna pull a punch," said one Republican operative. "The question I have about that crowd is whether or not they know when to pull a punch... I mean, these guys are good, but sometimes you can overplay your hand, and if that happens I don't know that that would surprise anybody. At least not anybody who has a history with them."

“If you call anybody in South Carolina who’s been around for a while, they’ll all tell you that Terry Sullivan is known as a cutthroat operative,” said another strategist. “He’s generally known as a specialist in what is often called ‘wet works,’ and for being a junior Atwater… who believes the best way to win in politics is to make it impossible for the other guy to win.”

Sullivan dismissed the criticism as carping from sore losers.

“I spent a lot of years running campaigns and winning in South Carolina,” he told BuzzFeed News. “It’s no surprise that some of the political operatives I beat over the years want to pay me back by fabricating stories while hiding behind anonymous quotes. Welcome to South Carolina politics.”

Yet, even as some in the state allow for the possibility that he has outgrown his old tactics, Sullivan doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to disown his reputation. Asked whether his approach had changed from the “cutthroat” style he was known for in South Carolina, he said, “I have no idea. I’m not sure that it has.”

He added, “Staff and consultants are overrated. You could get rid of every one of us and Marco would still win because he is the strongest candidate with the best message.”

Wesley Donehue, Rubio's lead digital strategist

Pinterest

The "knife fight" approach that Sullivan, Donehue, and Tompkins bring to the Rubio 2016 effort could prove immensely valuable in the coming months as they face off against Jeb Bush’s well-trained lieutenants and Donald Trump’s trigger-happy mercenaries.

Their style has also earned them a long list of influential enemies in South Carolina — a competitive early-primary state that could be crucial to Rubio's chances at winning the nomination next year.

"[Rubio's] got some people around him who have some real baggage in South Carolina," said one Republican fundraiser in the state. "That's gonna come back to haunt them."

The baggage that could prove most burdensome for Rubio is the lingering bad blood between his advisers and the Haley camp. The apparent acrimony can be traced back to South Carolina's fevered five-way gubernatorial primary in 2010.

The race made national headlines at the time after Will Folks — a local bomb-throwing blogger known for trafficking in insider politics and unconfirmed gossip — "confessed” on his site FITSNews to having an “inappropriate physical relationship” with Haley years earlier. Haley categorically denied the allegation, no proof ever surfaced to support the claim, and the resulting sympathy she received helped propel her to victory.

But while Folks got most of the blame — and attention— for the anti-Haley "smear" at the time, five South Carolina sources told BuzzFeed News that rival GOP operatives were aggressively circulating the rumors for weeks before the blogger went public. They said the driving force behind the gossip during that frenetic stage of the race was the Gresham Barrett campaign — where Sullivan was working as a consultant.

"There was no doubt among the political establishment in Columbia that the Barrett campaign — through Terry Sullivan's witchcraft that he practices — was getting [the rumors] out," said one former state party official.

Asked about these claims, Sullivan denied that there was ever a coordinated effort by the Barrett campaign to smear Haley. He conceded that their campaign spokesman, B.J. Boling, was caught gossiping about the rumors off the record with politicos in the state — including at least one reporter — but Sullivan said he immediately benched the aide when he found out.

"I told him he would be fired if he discussed it with anyone else. ... Not surprisingly, pretty much every reporter who called wanted to talk about it," Sullivan said. "Everyone in the state was talking about it. But to my knowledge he never proactively discussed it with reporters. The campaign put him on paid leave and turned his duties over to someone else."

(A former Barrett campaign official described Boling's efforts to disseminate the adultery rumors as somewhat more calculated, but added that Sullivan — who spent much of the 2010 election cycle consulting for a second, out-of-state campaign — was likely never looped in on those plans.)

Meanwhile, Donehue was more deliberate in his attempts to dig up dirt about the supposed Haley affair and hype his "findings" to reporters and GOP insiders, according to sources. He wasn't working directly for the Barrett campaign, but he did work at Sullivan's firm and he functioned like a super-charged volunteer for Haley's opponent — working the phones, gathering intel, and dangling the latest rumors in front of other politicos.

Donehue admits now to "gossiping about the rumors," but insists, "I certainly did not start them, or intentionally spread them."

But in a series of text messages he exchanged with FITSNews's Folks in May 2010 — days before the blogger published his allegation — Donehue seemed to suggest he had more control over the rumormongering than he now lets on.

Gov. Nikki Haley

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

In one of the messages (which were first published at FITSNews, and have since been authenticated by BuzzFeed News), Donehue wrote to Folks, "Here my promise to you, man to man. If you tell me that a story will fuck your marriage, I'll do everything in my power to kill it." In another, Donehue said, "I didn't start this. I just told too many people that it was happening." And in yet another, he boasted, "If I wanted [Haley] gone I would have already done it."

"I was just trying to help," Donehue says now of those texts. "But the truth is there was nothing I could do to kill the rumor because I wasn’t the one spreading it and I didn’t know who was."

The text messages also feature an ongoing exchange between Folks and senior Haley adviser Tim Pearson from May 2010. At the time, Folks was still on good terms with Haley and appeared to be working with her aides to debunk the rumors. The messages clearly show that Haley's camp believed that the strategists who now work for Rubio were fueling the infidelity rumors at the time — and the resulting contempt isn't difficult to discern.

At one point, after Folks warned that Donehue was threatening to release evidence of the "affair," Pearson replied, "Can you fuck donehue up?"

It is not clear yet whether Haley will try to play the kingmaker in 2016 by endorsing one of the Republican presidential contenders ahead of next year's South Carolina's primary — but if she does, Rubio's advisers may have a hard time courting the governor.

Asked whether he's concerned that his history with Haley could hold Rubio back in South Carolina, Sullivan said simply that he was "very optimistic" about his candidate's chances in the state.

Donehue responded to a question about the status of his relationship with the governor's office by saying, "I can't answer that."

Rob Godfrey, Haley's deputy chief of staff, told BuzzFeed News, "Nikki and Marco have known each other for a long time now, and she considers him a friend." Her office declined to elaborate when asked whether they still hold Sullivan and Donehue responsible for the 2010 mudslinging.

But granted anonymity to speak candidly, a Republican strategist close to the Haley administration put it more bluntly: "They're anathema to the governor."

Via tradeindia.com

WASHINGTON — At least three states — Texas, Ohio, and Arizona — have hired outside lawyers to help them obtain execution drugs that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a related court order have declared are illegal to import, BuzzFeed News has learned.

At least two of those states, Arizona and Texas, BuzzFeed News reported this past week, purchased execution drugs from overseas this summer. The states purchased sodium thiopental from Chris Harris, a drug salesman in India who has sold execution drugs to U.S. states at least six times in recent years, although none of the drugs from those shipments have ever been used in an execution.

The Arizona and Texas shipments were intercepted at airports in late July and are being held by the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration (FDA), which has repeatedly warned states and others that it will not allow importation of sodium thiopental under a federal court’s 2012 order. Nonetheless, both states hired outside counsel to assist in their efforts to get the drugs.

The third state, Ohio, has not held an execution since January 2014, when it executed Dennis McGuire using an untested drug combination of midazolam and hydromorphone. The combination resulted in McGuire gasping for air during an execution that lasted 26 minutes.

And yet, over the past two years, Ohio officials have spent more than $30,000 on legal advice from a specialty regulatory firm called FDAImports.com LLC that is run by Ben England. In October, Ohio officials sent a letter to the FDA, arguing that it should be allowed to import sodium thiopental.

Texas, which retained its outside counsel starting in October 2014 to provide it with legal advice regarding “specialized procurement” paid another of England’s businesses — Benjamin L. England & Associates LLC — more than $15,000 in April of this year. The payment was rescinded the next week but still appears in a public database.

While it is not known how much the states have spent altogether, Texas authorized $25,000 for its contract, which likely has been extended for an additional term. Nothing about Arizona’s payments are known. And, Ohio’s records only include payments through Sept. 4. If Arizona’s payments are similar to Ohio’s payments and Texas’s agreement, outside lawyers have been paid more than $75,000 to help three states attempt to get around the FDA, current law, and a federal court order.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News regarding the Arizona and Texas shipments, FDA spokesperson Jeff Ventura said on Monday afternoon, "The FDA will follow standard importation procedures, which allow for the importer of the detained products to offer testimony as to why the shipment is in compliance with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and should not be refused entry. FDA will evaluate the importer’s response and will determine if the product should be refused entry. This process is currently ongoing. FDA will notify the importer once the evaluation is completed."

OHIO: On Jan. 16, 2014, Dennis McGuire was executed by the state of Ohio. The execution was the first of three botched executions in 2014, all of which used midazolam as a sedative.

In the months that followed, Ohio officials delayed upcoming executions as they reviewed what happened in the McGuire execution.

The botched execution also initiated a flurry of activity in ongoing litigation over the state’s lethal injection procedures. On August 8, 2014, a U.S. District Court judge issued an order that Ohio conduct no executions for the remainder of the year. Over the next month, the state filed its answers to the complaint.

Then, the case seemed to stop — for public purposes, at least. From Sept. 6 to Dec. 10, there are no filings on the public docket for the case. The docket numbers associated with document entries in the case, however, jump from 499 to 503 during that time. Two other “missing” docket numbers exist in the month that followed a Dec. 11 filing, the first public action in the case since September.

While an ongoing protective order in the case prevents anyone in the case from discussing what happened during that time, there are public records that point to evidence that ODRC was busy during the time.

During those quiet months, Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction began paying FDAImports.com LLC — a company run by Ben England that assists with importation of drugs and other FDA-regulated items. Between November 2014 and July of this year, ODRC paid the company more than $33,000 for “Legal Services,” BuzzFeed News found in a review of records from the "Ohio Checkbook" website run by the state treasurer’s office.

via Ohio Checkbook / Via assets.documentcloud.org

On Nov. 25, 2014, FDAImports.com received its first payment from Ohio: $7,560, according to the treasurer’s office records. To be paid by that time, England and the state had to have signed a contract, and FDAImports.com would need to have completed and billed for the time worked.

England’s name is well known to those involved in death penalty litigation. He testified as an expert on behalf of death row inmates in Arizona in 2011, concluding that the attempt by the Arizona Department of Corrections to import several drugs, including sodium thiopental, from a foreign internet pharmacy, was illegal for several reasons. The court, ultimately, found against the inmates’ more broad claims challenging the state’s protocol, but did not decide on the questions raised about the imported drugs because Arizona “has agreed not to use them in any execution absent express consent from the DEA.”

Soon thereafter, a federal judge in D.C. did decide the issue, ruling in 2012 that FDA had “a mandatory obligation … to refuse to admit the misbranded and unapproved drug, thiopental, into the United States.” It also ordered the FDA to stop “permitting the entry of, or releasing any future shipments of, foreign manufactured thiopental that appears to be misbranded or [an unapproved new drug]. A federal appeals court upheld the order in 2013.

Now, however, England is providing legal advice to Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. On Feb. 12, 2015, FDAImports.com was paid $9,240 by ODRC. Less than two weeks before the payment, on Jan. 30, ODRC announced that it had canceled all executions for the year, moving them to 2016.

Food and Drug Administration / Via assets.documentcloud.org

A few months later, in mid-June, England received a letter from the director of the FDA’s Office of Enforcement and Import Operations, saying that it had “come to [the FDA’s] attention” that England’s firm “has inquired about the status of sodium thiopental.” The FDA official, Douglas Stearn, told England that “there is no FDA approved application for sodium thiopental, and it is illegal to import an unapproved new drug into the United States.”

Seven days later, on June 26, the director of ODRC also got a letter from the FDA, this time from the director of the Import Operation Division of the U.S. Public Health Service. As reported this summer by BuzzFeed News, Capt. Domenic Veneziano wrote in the letter of “information received” by the FDA that ODRC “intends to obtain … sodium thiopental.” While it is not clear from the text of the letters that they are relating to the same information, ODRC did pay FDAImports.com $7,350 over the course of the summer.

After not responding initially, ODRC responded to the FDA in a four-page letter this October, noting that “Ohio has no intention of breaking any federal laws or violating any court orders” but arguing that “there is a legal framework for a state, if it so chooses, to import sodium thiopental in accordance with [the laws and court order].” The letter proposes that if five conditions are met, then the 2012 order would not apply to such importation of sodium thiopental and, as such, it should be allowed.

A month earlier, a move from the other side took place. In late September, lawyers for the death row inmates filed an amended complaint in their ongoing litigation, adding new defendants, among other changes.

In the amended complaint, the inmates are now also suing “Defendants Drug Suppliers #1-25” — individuals and companies whose names are “unknown at this time.” The inmates’ lawyers write that the individuals or companies — noting that they could be foreign companies — are “engaged in manufacturing, procurement, transportation, import, export, sale (either retail or wholesale), supplying, or other distribution of drugs” and are helping ODRC “either directly or through intermediaries, with obtaining drugs for the purposes of carrying out executions by lethal injection.”

England did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and an attorney for the inmates in the ongoing lethal injection litigation said he had no comment. An ODRC spokesperson said she was looking into the matter, and days later said the request was "forwarded to legal for review," but no response has yet been provided to BuzzFeed News. Among the requests from BuzzFeed News are for a copy of any retention agreement with FDAImports.com and any further breakdown of the expenses incurred by FDAImports.com.

ARIZONA: Similar to Ohio, Arizona had a botched execution involving the use of midazolam. On July 23, 2014, Arizona executed Joseph Wood. The execution took nearly two hours, and Wood reportedly gasped and snorted for air at least an hour into the execution. A week later, it was revealed that the Arizona Department of Corrections had injected Wood with 750 mg each of midazolam and hydromorphone — when the protocol only called for the use of 50 mg of each drug.

Also similar to Ohio, Arizona has not conducted an execution since then.

Yet, the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice both purchased sodium thiopental this year from Chris Harris, a man in India who has sold the drug to several states in recent years. According to documents released this past week in Arizona, the state requested the wire transfer to purchase the drugs on March 6. The shipments intended for both states were held by customs officials on July 25 when they arrived in Houston and Phoenix airports, respectively. (More on Texas later.)

Although Arizona officials said nothing publicly about the matter at the time, officials had been working secretly convince U.S. officials to allow them to import the drugs before the drugs even arrived in Phoenix. One DEA letter references conversations about the issue beginning in mid-June.

After the shipment was held at the airport, the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections told officials that, if ADOC is allowed to take control of the sodium thiopental, it would not to use the drugs until their use was OK’ed by the FDA or a court.

Arizona Department of Corrections / Via assets.documentcloud.org

The day before the drugs arrived in Phoenix, though, a memo from ADOC that was simply addressed “To Whom It May Concern” announced that, regarding “FDA, DEA and U.S. CBP matters,” the ADOC has “authorized” an outside firm to “engage” the three agencies “respecting all issues related to the manufacture, distribution, exportation, and importation of FDA-regulated products.” The memo was made public in redacted form this past week in response to a discovery request in ongoing litigation in the state.

While the names of the lawyers, and even the state official who signed the letter, are redacted in the version made public this past week, the purpose of the ADOC memo was made clear on Aug. 18, when the memo was attached to a request to the FDA’s Douglas Stearn in a “Request for Delivery of Imported Sodium Thiopental to Destination.” The memo to Stearn — the same person who had written to England a month earlier — states that the firm represents ADOC. The firm and all identifying lawyers’ information is redacted.

On Aug. 21, the FDA rejected the requests, officially changing the status of the shipment to “detained” from its prior designation of “pending FDA review.” On Aug. 24, the FDA’s Veneziano responded to the ADOC, in a redacted letter released this past week, stating that FDA “determined that this shipment should not be allowed to move to destination at this time.”

Arizona DOC officials have not responded to repeated requests from BuzzFeed News for comment on the importation attempt or the hiring of outside lawyers.

TEXAS: Since Ohio executed McGuire, the state of Texas has put 22 people to death. It has neared the end of its supply of pentobarbital at times, but it always gets more of the drug in time for its next execution. The state even had enough to provide Virginia with three vials of the drug for its Oct. 1 execution of Alfredo Prieto. Citing secrecy laws, however, Texas does not reveal the source of its execution drugs.

Nonetheless, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials acknowledged to BuzzFeed News this past week that it did seek to import sodium thiopental, although the amount has not been made public.

“TDCJ cannot speculate on the future availability drugs, so we continue to explore all options including the continued use of pentobarbital or alternate drugs to use in the lethal injection process,” TDCJ spokesperson Jason Clark told BuzzFeed News. “The current execution protocol calls for the use of pentobarbital and there are no immediate plans to change it.”

Texas Department of Criminal Justice / Via assets.documentcloud.org

Texas’s purchase does not appear to be a last-minute decision. Around the same time that Ohio was beginning its relationship with England’s FDAImports.com, TDCJ also obtained outside counsel.

In a contract signed by TDCJ Chief Financial Officer Jerry McGinty on Oct. 13, 2014, Texas retained an outside counsel whose name is redacted in the document obtained by BuzzFeed News. The document was released earlier this year as part of a request by lawyers for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed.

Specifically, the description of the “legal services to be provided” are that “[o]utside counsel will provide legal services regarding specialized procurement.” The request for documents leading to the production of this contract, however, was specifically seeking only documents relating to the state’s lethal injection drugs, including “[a]ny and all documents or correspondence of any kind reflecting any effort made by TCDJ to obtain additional lethal injection drugs not already in TDCJ’s possession.”

The agreement, which could have been amended since then, was to last from Sept. 29, 2014, through August 31, 2015, and the outside counsel was to be paid no more than $25,000 during that time. Then-Attorney General Greg Abbott's office sent an email noting its approval of the contract on Oct. 21, 2014.

via Texas Transparency / Via texastransparency.org

A group of national Hispanic conservatives are set to come together Tuesday to blast Donald Trump before the GOP debate in Colorado. But behind the scenes there are sharp disagreements over whether to include Cruz, too. The LIBRE Initiative has already pulled out.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

At a charity golf tournament in Houston last week, an influential Hispanic political operative was telling a group of Republican donors and businessman about an event he and other Latinos had planned.

The idea, Massey Villareal told the group, according to an attendee, was to display Hispanic, conservative unity against Donald Trump — and Ted Cruz.

Villareal, the former chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said 25 national Hispanic conservatives would hold a press conference before this week's Republican debate in the hopes of forcing Trump's poll numbers down. But, according to the source, he ripped into both men, calling Cruz a HINO — Hispanic in Name Only.

The next day, the Washington Post reported plans for the press conference, identifying Trump and Cruz as targets of what organizers deemed an "unprecedented" event.

There's a problem, however: The supposedly unified group of former Bush administration officials, high-level RNC Latino surrogates, and Hispanic leaders has been anything but unified. There is still confusion about whom the event will target, and a major conflict about whether the group should include Cruz. Some feel strongly that the Texas senator should be criticized for positions like ending birthright citizenship. Some feel the RNC should be hit for not being more critical of Trump. Others say the party has its hands tied.

Behind the scenes, the LIBRE Initiative — a major player in the group — felt misled when the news broke of the event. Hit Trump? The group's executive director Daniel Garza was more than happy to sign up for that. But the group was not comfortable attacking Cruz, whom they view as distinct from Trump.

The LIBRE Initiative has since pulled out of the event. From the beginning, Garza could not attend because of a scheduling conflict, but he now no longer plans to send representatives from his organization.

Villarreal said the event is about drawing a line in the sand. "We're going to call out Donald Trump as a community of Latinos," he told BuzzFeed News. "We're conservative and respectful and he has no respect for our community."

But those involved still don't seem to know the exact form the press conference will take and who will be included. After the news became public, Villarreal told NBC News Trump would be the only one named. Speaking with BuzzFeed News, he left it open once again.

"My guess is that Trump will be the only target," he said. "But if we concur that Ted Cruz is on the radar screen, we'll do it, but he's not the target."

BuzzFeed News was sent an early, draft version of the list of conservatives who would participate in the press conference — though, according to the source, the Cruz question could cause some to drop out.

The list includes Samuel Rodriguez, who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), the largest group of Latino evangelicals; Alfonso Aguilar of the American Principles Project's Latino Partnership; Rosario Marin, a former U.S. treasurer; Hector Barreto, former head of the U.S. small business administration; Allen Gutierrez of the business oriented Latino Coalition; and others.

Aguilar — who is one of the event's main organizers, with Villarreal, Marin, and Colorado donor Jerry Natividad — said the initial invitation was simple: to discuss the tone that some candidates have employed regarding the Hispanic community and to look at the candidates' immigration proposals. Speaking of Garza, he said it would be "disingenuous" to think that process wouldn't include Cruz.

"If you're a Hispanic leader what do you think that implies? Only Trump? Really?" Aguilar said. "It's very disingenuous to think that would not include Cruz."

Aguilar said a high-level Cruz campaign staffer called him after news of the event broke asking if he views Cruz the same as Trump. The message from the campaign was, "We're concerned," Aguilar said. "You should be concerned," he responded.

Since the press conference was announced both Garza and the NHCLC's Rodriguez have released statements lauding Cruz.

Garza said that while he "vehemently" disagrees with Cruz on ending birthright citizenship, he views him as different than Trump.

"I want to make it very clear, I have tremendous respect for Sen. Ted Cruz," he said. "We have to maintain a relationship with folks that we are aligned with on other issues. I would advise the other folks to be considerate of that working relationship and be careful with setting a precedent that just because you disagree with an elected leader, you're going to go on attack mode."

Sources both inside the group and with knowledge of the fallout since the event became public said RNC officials are not happy with the press conference — they want to emphasize party unity. Some within the group aren't thrilled with how the RNC has handled Trump, though, believing that the party committee should be more critical.

"There are some that want the RNC to take a bigger stand," a source close to the group said. "But the RNC is not going to do that. If someone says something horribly racist they might say something, but they're not going to talk on policy, that's not the RNC's role. It does politics not policy."

Besides the question of who will or won't be mentioned at the press conference (Aguilar said Santorum might be because of his comments on limiting legal immigration, others said Ben Carson may because of comments he made about drones on the border, and Chris Christie for comparing tracking immigrants to FedEx packages), is the issue of whether the Republican nominee will be able to count on these Latino leaders as surrogates in the general election.

Multiple sources confirmed that the sentiment that has emerged is: "Fine, you don't feel you need us in the primary, but you're going to need us in the general." They said depending on who the nominee is, the Hispanic conservatives may not want to "make the hard case to Spanish-language networks" defending candidates they feel have disrespected the community. None would defend Trump, but candidates like Cruz and others could benefit from support like that.

"I can only speak for our organization but we're definitely not inclined to help people who aren't helping themselves," said the Hispanic Leadership Fund's Mario H. Lopez, who is part of the group, after being asked about Cruz. "We're happy to be helpful and assist any candidate, at any level, who has their heart in the right place and is devoting real energy and resources but I don't see us being very motivated to help any candidates if that's not the case."

Luis Alvarado, a Republican strategist who is part of the group, said targeting specific candidates is not the point of the event but the rhetoric that "scapegoats Latinos to earn poll points in Iowa" is.

"Colorado is one of those states that demonstrated it can be won with Latino votes if the candidates and the message are inclusive and not offensive," he said.

Aguilar said the fact that the meeting hasn't happened yet, but the Cruz campaign has already responded, shows the effect the group can have by coming together. He said it is about policy, noting that Cruz last week led the effort to crackdown on sanctuary cities, "which criminalizes every undocumented immigrant." Immigration is a gateway issue for Hispanics, he said.

But, referencing a Trump event in Miami on Friday where a supporter dragged an immigration protester to the ground, Aguilar said rhetoric can not be cast aside.

"It's totally alarming," he said. "Rhetoric and then the reaction to that rhetoric, when things like that start happening the candidate needs to step in and say something."

That's why on Trump — but also Cruz — Aguilar said he will speak up.

"I can not look the Hispanic community in the eye and remain silent and say everything is fine," he said. "We have to take a stand."

The former Arkansas governor has cast himself this election cycle as the defender of Social Security and Medicare, but in 2011, he wrote in his book that the U.S. government should raise the eligibility age for both programs, and reduce benefits for Social Security.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Throughout the 2016 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has argued against raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare and suggested he wouldn't make any major changes to either program.

Just three years ago, however, Huckabee wrote in his book that the programs were never intended to support the long retirements that have come with increased life expectancy, and that major changes were necessary in order to keep both programs afloat.

"When I hear people say, 'lets just raise the age, make them work longer, or lets cut their benefits' – and that was a decision that a couple of the candidates had – I was dying to get in there, " Huckabee told Breitbart News earlier this year. "To my knowledge, I'm the one Republican on the stage who believes that we don't go changing the rules in the middle of the game for the people who have been paying in all these years."

In op-ed published on Fox News on Wednesday, Huckabee argued against any changes to Social Security or Medicare, writing, "Sadly, the establishment elites treat Social Security and Medicare like WELFARE benefits. This is completely unacceptable, appalling, and flat-out wrong—these are EARNED benefits. Seniors are getting stabbed in the back while the Washington Republican establishment tells them it's a back massage! One of my fellow candidates has told Americans to 'get over it' when it comes to cutting Social Security and Medicare. Another has proposed cutting benefits to current seniors, even those who worked more than 50 years paying into the system."

Huckabee took a much different approach to both programs in his 2011 book, Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need from Washington (and a Trillion That We Don't!). Huckabee wrote that the U.S. government needs to raise the retirement age for Social Security and reduce the programs benefits for those still in their twenties, thirties and forties. Huckabee also expressed support for turning Medicare into a voucher system.

"What can be done," Huckabee wrote. "Well, for those already retired or close to retirement age, it's too late to change benefits. That door is closed. But it is fair to ask people in their twenties, thirties, and forties — in light of radically changed life expectancy — to plan for a different kind of future, including the responsibility to provide more for their eventual retirement. For one thing, the retirement age has to be raised. For another, the benefits will have to be adjusted downward."

Earlier in the book, Huckabee wrote it was "a dirty little secret" that Social Security was devised in a time when people had short life expectancy and weren't expected to live into their seventies.

"Here's a dirty little secret: Social Security was never intended to finance retirements lasting decades," Huckabee wrote. "When the legislation was passed in 1935, and the retirement age was set at sixty-five, life expectancy was in the late fifties for men, early sixties for women. See that? It was assumed that most people would be dead before they could qualify!"

"No one imagined those legions of healthy, lithe retirees you see in TV ads playing golf, boating, running marathons," he continued. "Today, life expectancy for average Americans has reached the late seventies, and many of us will live at least a decade or two longer. This is a blessing, especially if you're healthy, but you can no longer expect the government to support you for twenty or thirty years. The original financial calculations didn't allow for that eventuality. It's that simple."

On Medicare, Huckabee wrote, "we could switch to vouchers for Medicare; that way, recipients would be able to buy private insurance in the marketplace. Also, we should recognize that, just like Social Security, the Medicare program has not kept pace with the increases in life expectancy."

"We should raise the age of eligibility," he continued. "I know that's not politically smart to say, but I promised you I would do my best to talk sense in this book! This society likes to boast that age sixty is the 'new forty,' because people live better and longer. Fine, so if we feel as good as we did at forty when we turn sixty, shouldn't we be able to stay active and productive by continuing to work for a few more years? That would make it even more likely that the benefits will be there waiting when we reach the age or condition when we really do need them."

Trump says congressional Republicans have failed.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says he thinks President Obama has been "doing better" since Republicans took control of the Senate.

Trump made the comments on WBAL'S The Jimmy Mathis Show on Saturday while discussing frustration within the GOP at congressional Republicans who don't use the "power of the purse" to hold Obama accountable.

Noting that outgoing House Speaker John Boehner said there would be no government shutdown over raising the debt limit in the fall, Trump said, "Even if we weren't going to close it, why would you make that statement up front. If you make upfront, the Democrats and President Obama are going to say, 'wow, we're gonna win everything he's never gonna close it up."

The interviewer then pointed to what he said was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's refusal to use the "power of the purse."

"Actually I think Obama's doing better now than he did before we had the Senate, it's incredible," Trump responded.

"I think Obama did -- since we had it, we thought things were going to change," Trump said of Republicans winning control of the Senate. "Nothing's change, if anything it got worse. So I think he's doing better now than he did before."

Take a listen:

You can rely on the old man’s money.

Associated Press

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, casting his life as a struggle against naysayers, said on Monday a "small" loan of just a million dollars from his father got him started in the real estate business.

"My whole life really has been a 'no' and I fought through it," Trump told NBC's Matt Lauer. "It has not been easy for me, it has not been easy for me. And you know I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars."

Trump said that the loan was small compared to what he's built with it, calling his Trump Organization one of the "great companies." The million-dollar loan, however, would not be the last time Fred Trump -- whom Donald refers to as "Daddy-O" or "Pops" -- provided financial assistance to his son. Donald Trump once accepted a several-million-dollar loan from his father in the 1990s, when crushing debts left his business in shambles.

In December 1990, a lawyer for Fred Trump walked into Trump Castle in Atlantic City and, according to reports at the time, deposited a check with the casino for $3.36 million in exchange for chips. Instead of using the chips to play in the casino, the lawyer left.

The result: an interest-free loan to Trump from "Daddy-O."

The same day that Fred Trump made his chip purchase, The Donald stunned the gaming world and his creditors by making a scheduled bond payment.

"The payment gave the younger Trump enough cash to make an $18.4 million payment due bondholders in the casino and surprised analysts who said it appeared Trump lacked enough money to make the payment," read the Associated Press account from the time.

The Division of Gaming Enforcement, under director John Sweeney, opened an investigation, which ultimately found the loan to be illegal. In the end, Trump got to keep the money but had to pay a $30,000 fine.

"Sweeney said Fred Trump also agreed to apply for a license as a financial source, which would make another such loan possible in June, when the next interest payment is due," a Philadelphia Inquirer story from the time read.

Fred Trump would make further payments to his son, and Donald Trump ultimately settled his debts.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

There's a joke Martin O'Malley likes to make about his campaign: "Well," the former governor tells friends and supporters, "at least I haven't peaked too early."

This spring, Hillary Clinton set out on the campaign trail with unrivaled support, and this summer, Bernie Sanders began his sharp rise, first in New Hampshire, then in Iowa. All the while, O'Malley stayed stuck at the bottom of the polls. This month, with a narrowed Democratic field and more voters engaged by the debates, O’Malley's campaign aides have cast the last few weeks as the primary's true starting point.

But as they wait for his moment, O'Malley backers also recognize that without gaining traction soon, their candidate will run out of time — and money.

O'Malley began the fourth quarter with about $800,000 — a paltry sum compared to Clinton's $33 million and Sanders's $27 million. But according to an analysis of his itemized contributions and expenses, O'Malley set out on the final stretch to Iowa with effectively even less money than his latest financial disclosures suggest.

At the time of the filing deadline, the campaign had yet to pay some of his September expenses, including payroll. O'Malley reported spending about $72,000 in September, compared to $806,000 in August and $915,000 in July.

The sharp drop in spending, according to a campaign aide, does not reflect a pared-down operation. O'Malley spent more in the summer months, the aide said, because of start-up costs associated with the campaign, which launched in late May, as well as large one-off expenditures for mail and digital programs.

Still, the last O'Malley report did not include September paychecks. (The campaign ran September payroll on Oct. 2, after the filing deadline, an aide said.) Past payroll spending, which hovered around $400,000 per month by August, suggests that, in effect, O'Malley began the fourth quarter with as much as about half the $800,000 cash-on-hand his campaign reported.

Coming out of the slow summer months, the former Maryland governor saw an uptick in contributions, raising roughly $150,000 a week in September. But with expenses totaling $150,000 to $200,000 per week in July and August, O'Malley still spent more than he raised. His so-called 3rd quarter "burn rate" was 139.6%.

Dave Hamrick, O'Malley's campaign manager, said on Monday that the operation's overhead costs are sustainable. The campaign, he said by phone, is "financially strong and viable," and equipped to compete beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.

"We built an operation to give us the ability to have a strong campaign into the early contests and on to Super Tuesday," Hamrick said. "We're in this to win it."

Privately, O'Malley supporters say the candidate is committed to placing in Iowa on Feb. 1. After the caucuses, he hopes to have enough momentum, funding, and support to move onto the primary in New Hampshire. For months, campaign aides have been organizing and securing local endorsements in both states, with about 30 staffers in Iowa an 12 in New Hampshire. Polls also show that if there isn't much outright support for O'Malley, voters do consider him a viable second-choice candidate to Clinton or Sanders.

As he nears the caucuses and primaries, O'Malley's experience in 1984 on the underdog Gary Hart campaign remains central to his thinking, friends say. It wasn't until the month or so before Iowa that Hart began registering in polls as a threat.

Now, O'Malley is eying the fall as his best, if last, chance to find a path forward — not just drawing contrasts with Clinton and Sanders, but telling his own story.

In a campaign memo, released Monday, senior strategist Bill Hyers cast events this month as a crucial turning point in the campaign. The first Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Hyers said in the memo, amounted to O'Malley's "introduction on the national stage." And this weekend's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, he said, was the "opening salvo in a narrowed field he proved he thrives in."

"In the coming weeks, expect sharpened distinctions as Gov. O’Malley steps up the next phase of the campaign to make his case," Hyers wrote.

According to O'Malley, that phase begins now.

In an interview on Monday morning, on MSNBC's Morning Joe, O'Malley described the race as "changed in many, many ways just over the last week."

"We had the first debate, and then we had the [Jefferson-Jackson Dinner] in Iowa just the other night, and, in between, two of the candidates dropped out. The vice president chose not to get in this race and the difference is that I am going to be able to make now, between two candidates..."

Both Clinton and Sanders, O'Malley continued, "have been in Washington for about 40 years" — and neither one, he was quick to add, has "gotten much done."

Paul has once again written a book littered with easy-to-check historical inaccuracies.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Dear Sen. Rand Paul,

Four months ago, we brought to your attention that your first two books contained several quotations incorrectly attributed to our founding fathers. In The Tea Party Goes to Washington, you write eloquently of the need to limit government, quoting Thomas Jefferson as saying, "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." But Jefferson never said this. In Government Bullies (an e-book best seller!), you argue against tyranny and oppression, quoting James Madison as saying, "If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." There's no evidence Madison ever said or wrote this.

It's not just your books. Speaking in Greenville, South Carolina earlier this year, we caught you using a fake Patrick Henry quotation. You used it in a speech on the Senate floor, too. And it's not just the founders. You repeatedly misquoted Abraham Lincoln this year, as well.

Just this week you released a new book, Our President &Their Prayers: Proclamation of Faith by America's Leaders, with co-author James Robison who "compiled and edited" the text. It too is full of fake quotations.

If you Google the language of the "National Prayer of Peace," which you attribute to Thomas Jefferson, the first result is a page from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation debunking the quotation.

When we called Harold Holzer -- who's written 50 books on Abraham Lincoln and is the one of country's foremost Lincoln scholars -- to ask about a Lincoln quotation in your book, he replied, "Oh, not this again."

You wrote that Lincoln said, "I know there is a God, and that He hates the injustice of slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God."

Holzer was clear.

"I hope Sen. Paul can find another Lincoln prayer to console him because Lincoln never uttered anything like this," Holzer said. "It's totally apocryphal. 'Do unto others' was more in Lincoln's line. Not this."

The quotation that leads off your chapter on George Washington -- "let the world be filled with the knowledge of Thee and Thy Son, Jesus Christ" -- is also fake. The source comes from a prayer book, The Daily Sacrifice, commonly attributed to Washington by evangelicals and conservative politicians, despite the fact it's been routinely discredited by scholars.

For instance, John Fea, who chairs the History Department at Messiah College told the Carroll County Times in 2014 it was "far too pious for Washington," noting Washington only referenced Jesus Christ twice in all of his writing. The University of Virginia, where the papers of George Washington are stored, and the Smithsonian Institution both concluded the handwriting of the prayer was not Washington. And the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington also told us that that the prayer book was in no way connected to nation's first president.

A quick Google search would have shown the prayer book to be fake, and traced back to an auction of a book found by Washington's descendant Lawrence Washington in 1891.

Edward G. Lengel, professor and director of the Washington Papers at the University of Virginia said so, too.

These quotations are "not actually from George Washington. It is taken from a 'prayer book' attributed to Washington that first appeared in 1891 and is generally regarded by scholars (including myself) as a forgery. There is no evidence that Washington had a prayer book, or that he penned this one -- the handwriting in the original is clearly not his."

Similarly, Lengel the notes the story of Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge -- something you wrote "appears consistent with what we know of Washington's faith" -- also "is apocryphal."

Wrote Lengal to us, "The story contradicts itself and there's no evidence for it, making it pretty clearly a piece of early nineteenth-century hokum (stories like this — and the cherry tree — were very popular in that era and nobody checked to see if they were true or not)."

You quote "Washington's Prayer Journal" on multiple occasions in your Washington chapter.

This is where we stopped checking. You did a chapter on every president and we don't have the time to check them all.

All the best,

Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper
Reporter/Researchers, BuzzFeed News

The Paul campaign did not return a request for comment.

The national news media have identified an exciting new frontrunner in the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination. The latest polls have him at around third or fourth place.

Marco Rubio's transformation this month into popular fuss-object for the cable news know-it-alls and Beltway oddsmakers has been difficult to miss. At NBC News, he is "the new favorite to win the GOP nomination." At U.S. News, he has "gain[ed] the hot hand." And in the New York Times op-ed pages he is "the real frontrunner."

Ross Douthat, the conservative Times columnist who bestowed this latest honor upon Rubio, ably summed up the consensus case for the candidate's eventual nomination, which involves methodically ruling out the viability of all other contenders:

No major party has ever nominated a figure like Trump or Carson, and I don’t believe that the 2016 G.O.P. will be the first. Rand Paul’s libertarian moment came and went, Carly Fiorina seems like she’s running for a cabinet slot, John Kasich is too moderate (and ornery about it), Chris Christie has never recovered from the traffic cones. Scott Walker and Rick Perry are gone. Ted Cruz has the base’s love, but far too many leading party actors hate him...

That leaves Jeb! and Marco Rubio. But Jeb’s campaign has been one long flail. His favorable ratings are terrible, he and Trump topped a recent poll of Iowans that asked which candidate should drop out expeditiously...

So that leaves Rubio. And unlike all the rest, it’s surpassingly easy to imagine the Florida senator as the nominee. He sits close to the party’s center ideologically, and his favorable ratings with Republicans are consistently strong. He’s an effective debater with a great personal story and an appealing style, and a more impressive policy portfolio than most of his rivals. He scares Democrats in the general election, and strikes the most politically-useful contrasts with She Who Has Always Been Inevitable.

"The betting markets have him as the most likely nominee, and — since this is quadrennial prediction time — I’ll say that I agree," Douthat concludes, effectively speaking on behalf of his colleagues in the political press. "I think he’s the real front-runner, and I predict that he will win."

But, of course, Rubio is not actually the Republican frontrunner in any statistical sense. The RealClearPolitics average of 2016 polls has him in third place, at 9.2%. The Huffington Post poll tracker has him in fourth, with 6.7%. Perhaps most strikingly, Rubio has never topped the national polls — at least not since he became a candidate. The last time he led the 2016 primary field was two years and four months ago, in June 2013, when the polls were entirely hypothetical.

This has not stopped the political press over the years from hyping Rubio's presidential prospects at every chance possible, and generally gushing about his political talents.

When Time magazine put the young, dynamic, Cuban-American senator on its cover in early 2013 and declared him "The Republican Savior," he was leading in a handful of premature polls — just ahead of the other two top-tier contenders at the time, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee. But then came Rubio's ill-fated foray into the Senate's bipartisan immigration bill, and his subsequent collapse of support among conservatives. By the end of June, Rubio had tumbled to third place (behind a surging Rand Paul), and the decline continued all year, according to HuffPost Pollster.

The Republican savior fallen from grace. The tea party saint now shunned by believers. The stories wrote themselves — and once they had, in fact, all been written, reporters went searching for new Rubio angles.

In March 2014, some in the media — including me — spotted glimmers of a comeback narrative after one of Rubio's speeches went semi-viral on the right. BuzzFeed News published a tick-tock of the game-changing performance: "Behind The Speech That Launched Marco Rubio's Comeback."Townhall's Conn Carroll pronounced his verdict: "Rubio is the 2016 frontrunner again."

Rubio rode this new wave of media excitement from sixth place to seventh in the national polls.

By November 2014, the prospective presidential candidate was registering just over 4% support, nationally. That month a political analyst declared him the leading contender for the nomination. Business Insider promptly splashed the prediction across its homepage.

This news cycle repeated itself last spring, when Rubio got a bounce from a widely covered campaign kickoff speech that propelled him (briefly) to second place in the polls; and it started again earlier this month. But the candidate has yet to live up to the great expectations of the opinion-makers.

What pundits and reporters really mean when they call Rubio the "frontrunner" is simply that he is the best candidate in the race: the savviest politician, the most impressive performer. Rubio is the Republican who makes the most sense to the political press — and for a candidate like him that could become a problem.

Chris Christie's coziness in the Morning Joe greenroom compounded conservatives post-2012 wariness of him, and when scandal struck his administration, many in the online right were content to watch him get devoured by the "liberal media" he so adored. Jon Huntsman's 2012 candidacy — already marred by organizational failings and a transparent disdain for the Tea Party — was further hampered by his status as a darling of the media elite (and the perception that he enjoyed posing for that splashy Vogue spread a tad too much).

Both Christie and Huntsman either were or signaled to voters they were much less conservative than Rubio, but the more a candidate is doted on by the news media, the more he opens himself up to suspicion from primary voters — and attacks from opportunistic rivals.

This is a lesson Rubio learned once before during the immigration fight of 2013. His willingness to work on a bipartisan immigration overhaul was already seen as a betrayal of conservative orthodoxy — and when the backlash began, his time spent reveling in the adoration of the press made it all the easier for his right-wing critics to dismiss him as a fraud. In one memorable on-air rant, Glenn Beck labeled him a "piece of garbage" who had let himself be hypnotized by the enticements of the powerful and the glamor of media fame.

“He’s not trying to do the right thing,” Beck said at the time. “He’s falling into the power structure.”

The former Republican senator tells BuzzFeed News about the qualities he seeks in a leader, but declined to endorse a presidential candidate just yet.

Luke Palmisano / AP

George Voinovich, the former two-term Republican senator from Ohio, told BuzzFeed News in an interview on Monday that he believes Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who some in the media have deemed the real frontrunner in the Republican race, lacks the management experience to be president.

"The only reason why I discount him, from my experience, is that he hadn't had any management experience," Voinovich, who also was governor of Ohio for two terms, said. "And I think our president has been a disaster because of the fact that he hasn't had any management experience."

"I was a county auditor, a county commissioner, lieutenant governor, mayor, and governor. And I can tell you that when I became mayor I thanked god that I had been a county commissioner. I'd learned things through that experience. And when I became governor, I said, 'Oh, thank god, I was a mayor, a county commissioner.' There's a big difference between being an executive, an administrator, and being a legislator. And some people can rise above that, but darn few do," he said. (Rubio, it should be noted, was city commissioner for West Miami prior to his election to the Florida statehouse.)

The 79-year-old Republican declined to make an endorsement on Monday, despite a heavy overlap between John Kasich's staff and his own teams from his days in office, including Kasich's campaign manager, Beth Hansen, who was Voinovich's state director for 12 years and ran his first senate campaign.

An endorsement, he said, "might happen" "down the road," but, for now, he's still waiting to see which candidate will have the "courage to look the American people in the eye" and tell them about the need for "short-term pain" "so that our children have the opportunity to have the same standard of living and quality of life that we have had."

Voinovich, who left the Senate in 2011, broke ranks with Republicans a number of times during the Obama administration. He was the sole Republican to vote for raising the debt ceiling in December 2009, and he told BuzzFeed News that he believes the next president must also be willing to compromise to address fiscal problems that threaten the nation.

He added that he thinks that candidates with executive experience in government -- such as John Kasich, Jeb Bush, and, to a lesser extent, Chris Christie -- are best positioned to address the nation's problems.

"You gotta have somebody that understands that you have to have humility and, you know, you gotta look back. And John's had some tough times in the legislature and he's had to sit down and work it out. I know Jeb's had it," Voinovich said.

Despite his lack of experience, Voinovich sees Rubio's appeal as a candidate, saying, "I think on the stump he's more attractive than the three people you just mentioned, the former governors." He praised him for being "a good looking guy," who's "young" and electable, with a compelling personal story.

"I think people in this era feel that perhaps his charisma and so forth would make him someone that would be acceptable to the American people. The son of an immigrant and so on and so forth," he said.

But he argued that voters will ultimately seek a candidate with more experience as an executive, an area where, he noted, even Trump surpasses Rubio.

"I think that when people think about it—they're gonna want to say that 'I'd like to have somebody in there that's had a track record, that's faced a lot of problems, has had to come up with solutions, has had to work with other people to bring them together to solve these problems and quite frankly I don't think he's had that experience," Voinovich said. "Quite frankly, Trump has had much more experience in that regard than he has ever had in terms of putting deals together and working with other people."

Voinovich has never been shy about criticizing members of his party. He made news when, in a book published after his retirement from public service, he condemned Mitch McConnell for telling Republicans that, if Obama "was for it, we had to be against it."

Voinovich also told BuzzFeed News that he would "have a problem" with Ted Cruz, should he be the nominee. He added, however, that, like Rubio, Cruz has "a lot of good characteristics about him." He said he likes what Rubio in particular has said on foreign policy, though again cautioned that "the fact that I'm an expert in policy does not necessarily mean that I'm gonna make a great president."

If there is a model Voinovich is using as a point of comparison, it's George H.W. Bush, whom he called the "ideal" character to hold the nation's highest office.

"He's the greatest that I've met in my career in terms of character and, you know, he's just quite a guy," he said.

This Nov. 5, 2005 file photo shows the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Corrections Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.

Kiichiro Sato / AP

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled this week that Ohio can keep the identities of its execution drug suppliers a secret, dealing a blow to death row inmates challenging the state's lethal injection procedures.

Referring to a legal battle that has gone on in secret over the past two months, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost ruled on Monday that the state is entitled to a protective order preventing state officials from turning over information about the identities of lethal injection drug suppliers.

"If execution by lethal injection is legal, and the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly said it is, then it follows that there must be some manner of carrying it out," Frost ruled. Noting "the debatable and unsettled issues surrounding today’s decision," however, he also authorized the dispute for immediate appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and put the case on hold while the question is resolved — a step a lawyer for the inmates said they would be taking.

The ruling came a week after Ohio officials announced it would not be holding any executions in the upcoming year, and days after BuzzFeed News revealed Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has paid more than $30,000 to a company with expertise in helping clients import foreign drugs. Earlier this month, an ODRC official wrote to the Food and Drug Administration that it should be allowed to import foreign sodium thiopental for use in executions — a move that the FDA says is barred by a federal court order.

Frost, however, ruled that the state can keep secret what it knows about the supplier of the execution drugs called for in its current protocol — pentobarbital and sodium thiopental — from the inmates challenging Ohio's lethal injection process.

The opinion details court filings that were never listed — even as sealed — on the public court docket and secret hearings held in recent months over whether the identity of the state's suppliers of lethal injection drugs should be disclosed to the death row inmates challenging the state's execution procedures.

In explaining his reasoning for the order, Frost ruled that "disclosure of the information sought indeed presents a tangible burden on Defendants and would be unduly prejudicial."

Frost referred to a threat received by a compounding pharmacy in Oklahoma, which was submitted into evidence by Ohio officials in this case. After noting that "it only takes one fanatic with a truckload of fertilizer," the letter writer told the compounding pharmacy: "In your place, I’d either swear to the nation that my company didn’t make execution drugs of ANY sort, and then make dang sure that’s true, or else openly accept the burden of putting my employees and myself at unacceptable (and possibly uninsurable) risk. Just sayin’."

In assessing the threat, Frost wrote, "If the question is whether a reasonable pharmacy owner or compounder would feel burdened by receiving such an email, the answer is likely if not certainly yes. And by burdened this Court means likely scared to the point of electing not to help Ohio in the state’s lawful quest to kill."

The court ordered that the state does not need to turn over to the inmates' lawyers "any information or record in Defendants’ possession, custody, or control that identifies or reasonably would lead to the identification of any person or entity who participates in the acquisition or use of the specific drugs, compounded or not, that Ohio indicates in its execution protocol it will use or will potentially seek to use to carry out executions."

Lawyers for the inmates had argued that such information was necessary for them to prove their case that Ohio's lethal injection procedure is unconstitutional. In describing their claim, Frost wrote that their argument boiled down to a claim that, if they don't know the source of the execution drugs, "then they cannot know precisely what to look for and cannot consequently mount a truly meaningful challenge."

While Frost found that request "undoubtedly of some relevance or likely to lead to the discovery of relevant evidence," he concluded that "the burden on and prejudice to Defendants as discussed above outweighs Plaintiffs’ interests."

Finally, Frost also found that such a protective order was justified under federal rules and not simply because of the state law providing that government officials can keep certain information about the execution process a secret. Lawyers for the inmates had argued that the state law shouldn't apply to federal litigation, but Frost ruled that he did not need to decide that issue "because the same concerns that apparently led to the creation of the statute exist [in the federal litigation]: the burden on and prejudice to the state that disclosure presents."

Allen Bohnert, a lawyer for the inmates, said in a statement that the legal team was disappointed by the ruling.

"We know from recent media reports that Ohio officials have been trying to skirt the law in a desperate attempt to obtain execution drugs," Bohnert said. "This ruling has the potential to protect state officials and business with whom they engage in illegal activity from the legal consequences of their actions, and we plan to appeal the ruling."

Read the order:

“It’s very similar to their pro-choice, whether you are deciding to end or extend your own life, or to terminate, or to go through the pregnancy, you have the right to make any personal choice you want, as long as it’s the one that liberals agree with.”

Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says it's questionable that suicides are counted in the total number of gun deaths, arguing that those who commit suicide will kill themselves whether a gun is present or not.

Citing a recent Pew Study that found that the gun suicide rate had risen in recent years, Huckabee, on his daily podcast The Huckabee Exclusive, said "many question why liberals even count suicides in gun death figures, since anyone bent on suicide will do it whether there is a gun handy or not."

"Besides liberals are the ones who keep pushing for everyone to have a right to die," Huckabee said. "In fact, just this month, California Governor Jerry Brown, signed a Right-to-Die bill to let doctors prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients. But a week later he vetoed the Right-to-Try bill that would have allowed terminally ill patients to petition drug companies to let them try experimental treatments, not yet approved by the government. At that point they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. They are willing to take the risk, and it might even help researchers learn what works and and even benefit millions of people. And isn't their life to do it as they please?

"Well not really, the left believes in a right-to-die just not a right to live," he added. "You can take drugs that kill you, as long as they are approved by the government and will definitely kill you, and not non-FDA approved drugs that might save you. It's very similar to their pro-choice, whether you are deciding to end or extend your own life, or to terminate, or to go through the pregnancy, you have the right to make any personal choice you want, as long as it's the one that liberals agree with"

Huckabee then noted California led the nation in gun deaths, despite having strict gun laws. Adjusted for population the state actually has one of the lowest rates of firearm deaths nationwide, according to the CDC.

"Speaking of California and that new Pew report on gun violence, it also found that California, which leads the nation in gun control laws, also leads the nation in gun murders," said Huckabee.

"California alone accounts for nearly 15% of gun murders in the U.S, I guess you really do have a right to die in California. So the next time you hear that gun violence if way up and only gun control can stem it, just remember, according to cold, hard, FBI data, gun violence is actually way down, even as gun ownership has risen. The state where it is still the worst, is the one state where the laws make it most difficult for potential victims to arm themselves."

Take a listen:

w.soundcloud.com

Paul also responded to a BuzzFeed News report that pointed out factual inaccuracies in his new book on Tuesday, telling the Washington Post, “the only criticisms have come from some guy who’s a partisan. We discount partisans.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

The publisher of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's latest book, Our Presidents & Their Prayers, is standing by Paul and co-author James Randall Robison after BuzzFeed News reported several historical inaccuracies in the book .

Sophie Cottrell, the senior vice president of corporate communications at Hachette Book Group, sent BuzzFeed News the following statement on Tuesday:

The following statement in response to your post today can be attributed
to James Randall Robison, who compiled and edited the material from the presidents:

Nothing here is "made-up" or otherwise manufactured. They are documented, even if the original account is disputed.

There are a handful of quotes that are debated by historians and academics, and many more that liberals desperately wish were not true. Sources are properly cited and most are older than those rejecting their veracity.

While we can argue about a couple of quotes, the vast majority reside in the federal government's public record for all to view. Regardless of the nit-picking, one cannot deny that every single president has unashamedly and publicly acknowledged the role of God in our nation, thanking Him for his providence, seeking His guidance, and exalting His wisdom.

On Tuesday, BuzzFeed News published a letter to the Kentucky senator asking him to stop misattributing quotes to America's founding fathers. The letter noted that Paul's latest book is filled with quotations that, according to experts, are misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.

Paul was similarly defiant in an interview with the Washington Post's Dave Weigel on Tuesday, referring to me as an "idiot" and one of the "partisan hacks" out to get Paul.

"That guy," Paul told the Washington Post. "The only criticisms have come from some guy who's a partisan. We discount partisans."

BuzzFeed News has previously reported Paul's first two books, The Tea Party Goes to Washington and Government Bullies were filled with fake quotations. Paul has also deployed the use of fake quotations on the campaign trail this year and on the Senate floor.

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Efforts to change the nation’s criminal justice system got a major boost Tuesday.

Congressional leaders began pushing a budget deal Tuesday to raise the debt limit and avert a shutdown until 2017. Although the funding bill is completely separate from the criminal justice legislation lawmakers have been working on, if approved, it would give Congress more breathing room to focus on criminal justice changes before the 2016 election heats up.

With funding for the government set to expire in mid-December, advocates had been concerned that fiscal issues would dominate Congress through this year and potentially into next year, delaying the measure which has bipartisan support and took more than three years to negotiate.

But if the budget deal is signed into law, it could add to the momentum building in favor of the criminal justice legislation, which would reduce some federal mandatory minimum sentencing.

“This is the best possible scenario for us that the budget stuff is working itself out,” said Holly Harris, executive director of the bipartisan U.S. Justice Action Network. “This has cleared the way for our legislation.”

Republican leaders in the Senate even addressed the issue in their weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon, which in itself was a major victory, Harris said.

“Just the fact that leadership is talking about this bill is monumental," she said. "A year ago, many thought this wasn’t possible. In fact, two months ago no one thought this was possible.”

Harris's group is one of many from across the political spectrum pushing for criminal justice changes. They include the Charles Koch Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the legislation, which would overhaul mandatory minimum sentences — among other changes — by a 15-5 vote last week. Sen. Ted Cruz, who is running for president, voted against the measure. But one of his closest allies, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, is a cosponsor of the bill, making it difficult for Cruz find enough support to derail the legislation even if he takes it to the campaign trail.

During the Senate GOP leadership's weekly press conference Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn urged the Senate to take up the issue as soon as possible.

"The president’s in Chicago today talking about criminal justice reform, and as you know, there’s a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, one composed of sentencing reforms and also prison reforms,” Cornyn told reporters.

"This is one area where I've told the majority leader that with that kind of broad bipartisan support, hopefully after we get through the rest of this year's business, this is something we could take up," he said. "The House is considering a similar bill. And with the president's support of the idea of criminal justice reform, it's seems like the time is right. “

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed support for bringing up the legislation to the floor for a vote, but did not give a timeline. "It's certainly going to get floor time in this Congress, but I can't give you an exact time at this point,” he told reporters.

Senate GOP aides believe it will be hard to take up the issue before next year even if the budget is taken care of in the coming days.

But it does give senators who are supporting the measure the time and energy needed to lobby their colleagues and gear up for a vote when Congress returns in January.

"I'm just encouraged by the momentum on criminal justice reform overall," New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker told BuzzFeed News. "This bipartisan, bicameral energy is encouraging. It shows that we can come together and get things done."

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

DENVER — Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky senator Rand Paul says he'll filibuster a bill to raise the debt ceiling, he told reporters on Tuesday.

"I will filibuster the new debt ceiling bill," Paul said before a campaign appearance at the University of Colorado. "I think it’s a horrible — it’s hard for me to not use profanity in describing it."

"It’s a bill that shows a careless disregard for debt," he said. "It will raise the debt with no limit."

Congressional leadership reached a budget deal with the White House this week that would raise the federal debt limit, avoiding a potential shutdown. The deal, which would raise discretionary spending limits by $80 billion, has been been opposed by some Capitol Hill conservatives, though it is expected to pass. The House may vote on the bill on Wednesday, and a vote has not yet been scheduled in the Senate.

"I will do everything I can to stop it, I will filibuster it, I will not let them condense the time," Paul said. "I will make sure that the country is aware that really both sides appear to have given up, right and left."

"The right wants more money for the military and the left wants more money for welfare," Paul said. "Guns and butter, that’s what we’re going to have, guns and butter, but as a consequence they’re destroying the country and creating more debt."

"The debt ceiling is a canard put forward by those who want to spend money," he said.

Paul has conducted high-profile filibusters in the Senate before; in 2013, he stood for 13 hours on the Senate floor opposing drone strikes against American citizens, and for 11 hours against the Patriot Act in 2015.

Asked whether he thought his planned filibuster would be similar to those, Paul said, "We don't know yet."

His presidential campaign has struggled in the past few months both with fundraising and poll numbers. He was in Denver on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's Republican primary debate in boulder.

BOULDER, Colorado — Republican presidential candidate and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham played a game of "fuck, marry, kill" and confessed to having never smoked pot in a ribald appearance in Boulder ahead of Wednesday's Republican primary debate.

CNN's Dana Bash interviewed Graham at a "Politics on Tap" event at the Walnut Brewery here, where Graham began the evening by tending bar and taking a shot or two of Jameson. Bash asked Graham to play a game of what she called "date, marry, or make disappear forever," a PG spin on the classic game of "fuck, marry, kill." The choices: Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina, and Hillary Clinton.

Unlike most presidential candidates when faced with a question like this, Graham played along, saying that out of the three, he would go on a date with Palin. He would marry Fiorina, because the former Hewlett-Packard CEO is rich (and "Hillary says she's dead broke," he joked). Graham did not go so far as to state that he would have Clinton disappeared forever.

Given that this is Colorado, Bash asked Graham about marijuana legalization.

"Personally I don't like the idea," Graham said. "I'm not a big fan of legalizing marijuana, I think there's enough problems with alcohol without adding to it." Graham said he considers marijuana a gateway drug.

However, "count me in for medical marijuana," Graham said, saying that it helps people with epilepsy .

Graham said he had never smoked pot, but acknowledged having been around it.

"Yeah, I've never smoked pot. I don't know what that makes me," Graham said.

"I've been convinced that it helps people with epilepsy," Graham said when asked by BuzzFeed News about medical marijuana after the Q&A had wrapped up.

"I'll be honest with you, this is about 10th on my list of things to worry about," Graham said with a laugh after being asked about Colorado's marijuana legalization and whether he would do anything to reverse it. "After I kill [ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-] Baghdadi, I'm gonna come after y'all."

Graham had found a way to mention Baghdadi before during his questioning by Bash, who asked him whether he still doesn't use email (he doesn't).

Asked who would be the first person he would email if he were to email someone, he said it would be Baghdadi, to inform him that he was coming for him.

Graham was in Boulder before Wednesday's Republican primary debate, where he will again take part in the undercard debate for candidates who do not poll high enough to be included in the main debate.

“I didn’t believe he had read the book, I say, you know what, I can’t believe Donald Trump read my book, and he assured me that he did.”

Steve Pope / Getty Images

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says parts of Donald Trump's platform actually stem from a meeting last summer in which he and Trump discussed his 2014 book, Blue Collar Conservatives.

Speaking on AM970 The Answer on Wednesday, Santorum, who is polling at less than 1% in most polls, discussed how the meeting came about after Trump heard Santorum talking about Atlantic City's economic woes last year.

"It was actually a very positive thing," said Santorum. "You and I were talking about the closing of – I think it was closing of casinos, businesses closing in Atlantic City, and you were talking about the jobs being lost. And I talked about how, you know, the business climate in New Jersey, whatever it was. But Trump heard that, he was listening to your show, and thought that it was nice of me not to throw him under the bus – which I did not. And so he reached out to me and said, you know, 'Hey, thank you for not throwing me under the bus.'"

After the comments, a meeting was held weeks later, Santorum said.

"And so that lead to a meeting that we had, when I was up in New York several weeks later. This was last summer, and several weeks later I was up in New York, and I had a meeting with him," the senator added. "And I recounted, when I walked into his office, he was holding a copy of my book Blue Collar Conservative. And he was saying how he had liked the book, he had read the book – of course, I didn't believe he had read the book, I say, you know what, I can't believe Donald Trump read my book, and he assured me that he did."

Santorum claimed much of Trump's 2016 platform actually came from his book.

"And actually, some of the things he's talking about on the campaign trail, about making America great again, talking about manufacturing and trade, and immigration, and all the things I talk about," stated Santorum. "How we're gonna create a better opportunity for wage earners to be able to rise in this country, and that the Republican Party better change its tune, from just talking about big business and being a completely business-oriented group and talking about what we're gonna do to improve wage-earners opportunity to rise in America, and get better-paying jobs, and be able to better support their families."

w.soundcloud.com