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

Ben Carson
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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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Carson, whose steady rise to the top of presidential primary polls has started to draw media scrutiny his way, is depending on a loose interpretation of the word "scholarship." There is no tuition at West Point; there is no equivalent of a "scholarship" as generally understood at most universities. In his memoir Gifted Hands and in anecdotes about the offer, Carson never says that he "applied," only that some "scholarship" came his way after a meeting with [Gen. William] Westmoreland and "congressional medal winners." [The Washington Post]

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.'"

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.