Maybe it’s the Carter family’s revenge.
Among the many amazing facts in the strange case of the secret Mitt Romney fundraiser video that sparked a media frenzy this week is that James Carter IV, the grandson of the 39th President, played an integral role in the video’s release. Now the political scion and freelance Democratic researcher is talking about his experience.
“[Supporters] have said that this is poetic justice, that a Carter is the one that found this video that is giving the Romney campaign so much trouble,” Carter said to NBC News. “And I have to say that I definitely agree with that sentiment.”
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In the aftermath of the video — in which Romney is caught on camera saying, among other things, that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes — James Carter has explained the story behind its release to multiple news outlets. As the Associated Press reported, Carter noticed a clip on YouTube, managed to contact the source and arranged the release of the full video through David Corn, the Washington D.C. bureau chief of Mother Jones magazine. As Corn explained to Politico’s Dylan Byers:
“James seemed capable of getting through the layers,” said Corn. “He started tweeting, emailing with the source, and asked the person if he would talk to me. We started by private tweets, then moved to emails, then phone calls. It was a long process — I had to become comfortable with the source, and he had to know that we would protect his confidentiality.”
Of course, it was the repeated criticisms of Jimmy Carter by Mitt Romney throughout the election cycle that made James Carter’s finding particularly fitting. (Think back to the carefully calibrated retort that Romney leveled at Obama in April, when he dismissed the president’s order to authorize the Bin Laden raid. “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” the Republican stated.)
“It gets under my skin — mostly the weakness on the foreign policy stuff,” Carter recounted to NBC News about Romney’s pointed critiques of his grandfather’s presidency. “I just think it’s ridiculous. I don’t like criticism of my family.”
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