Carson mis-cites Thomas Jefferson as an author of the Constitution

Speaking in a C-SPAN interview on Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson offered effusive but inaccurate praise for America's third president, Thomas Jefferson. Responding to a question about why he regularly speaks of the Founding Fathers, Carson remarked:

As Carson wrote in his 2015 book about constitutional liberties, A More Perfect Union, Jefferson was not involved in the drafting of the Constitution because he was in France. In fact, Jefferson was associated with the Anti-Federalist cause, which opposed the Constitution on the grounds that it gave too much power to a centralized government.

Carson has previously stumbled over historical facts on the campaign trail, erroneously claiming that all signers of the Declaration of Independence (which Jefferson did write) had never held elected office. Some, like Jefferson, had held state-level offices, and all were delegates to the Continental Congress.

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