Ben Carson's campaign calls Politico's West Point story 'an outright lie'

Ben Carson's claim that he once received a full scholarship to West Point Military Academy came into question Friday afternoon when Politico suggested the campaign had admitted Carson "fabricated" the story. Now Carson's campaign is hitting back, saying they did nothing of the sort.

"The Politico story is an outright lie," Carson's communications director Doug Watts told The Daily Caller. Watts maintained that Carson never claimed he had actually applied or been admitted to the school and therefore the campaign had not actually "admitted to anything."

That depends on how you look at it:

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Or, as Watts put it to The Daily Caller, "[Carson] was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors. They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC [...] I would argue strongly that an appointment is indeed an amazing full scholarship."

Carson later clarified to The New York Times, "It was, you know, an informal 'with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point.'"