Exclusive: Ben Carson Paternity Lawsuit Could Leave HUD Nomination Aborted

Update: Just days after Daily Caller editor Vince spiked this piece and hours after this reporter talked to the FBI DC Field Office about the paternity lawsuit, which they were not aware of, publisher Neil Patel illegally breached my contract, barred me from writing for the Daily Caller, and illegally denied me the salaried  job with health insurance that Tucker Carlson had expressly and repeatedly promised me. 

Here is the graphic for the story that Vince refused to publish. 

 

Ben Carson faces FBI questioning about his little-noticed paternity lawsuit if he accepts an offer from President-Elect Donald Trump  to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development..

Investigative journalist Ron Kessler, author of two books on the FBI, told the Washington Gadfly that FBI agents conducting a background check on Carson would quiz him about the mysterious claim.  

“Absolutely any possibly derogatory material would be included in the FBI's report. It will be reviewed on a confidential basis by the White House and then if they have no objection it will be reviewed confidentially by the relevant Senate committee before going for a vote in the Senate,” he explained.  If the White House or Senate committee have a serious problem with the nomination based on the report, they will quietly ask the potential nominee to withdraw his or her name from consideration."

The lawsuit, filed by a woman in Florida, where a West Palm Beach house is listed under Carson’s name, received almost no buzz during his failed presidential bid. Even though, on November 10, 2015, when Carson was riding high, the Washington Post picked up Mediaite scribe Tommy Christopher’s carefully-reported item on the matter.

The case’s validity and ultimate resolution is unclear since the court records are apparently sealed.

Although most defendants desperately try to keep these things under wraps, Carson actually highlighted the claim in 2014, shortly after emerging as conservative’s great black hope, as I dubbed him, when he denounced Obamacare at the National Prayer Day breakfast, with its namesake just steps away.

In another interview, Carson told me he thought Obamacare was worse than 9/11 because, after all, the terrorists attacks that killed more than 3,000 people and precipitated two wars, were merely an isolated event.

Seriously.

On April 29, 2014, arguing in his new Washington Times column that public figures are continually smeared with baseless charges, Carson casually mentioned that he was once sued for paternity by a Florida woman trying to blackmail him.

“Several years ago while I was in the operating room, I received a call from one of the legal offices at Johns Hopkins University informing me that the state of Florida was trying to attach my wages for child support.

“I was quite shocked at such an allegation and informed them that I had three children, which I already support very ably. They said a woman in Florida was accusing me of being the father of her son, and that she had proof of our relationship. The proof turned out to be knowledge of where I went to high school, college, medical school, and where I served my internship and residency. To top all that off, she had a picture of me in scrubs. I said anyone could obtain such information. However, the paternity suit was pursued, and I had to involve my personal lawyer.

“As the case advanced, I was asked to provide a blood specimen to facilitate DNA testing. I refused on the basis of the incompetence of any governmental agency that was willing to pursue a paternity suit on such flimsy grounds. I said that level of incompetence would probably result in my blood specimen being found at a murder scene and me spending the rest of my life in prison.

“Shortly thereafter, the suit was dropped with no further ramifications. I’m virtually certain that the woman in Florida erroneously assumed that someone who travels as much as I do was probably engaging in numerous extramarital affairs and probably wouldn’t even remember all the parties with whom he had been involved. Under such circumstances, she assumed that I would be willing to fork over the money to avoid public embarrassment.

“What she didn’t know is that I did not have to scratch my head and try to remember which affair she represented, because I knew that the only woman I have ever slept with in my life was my wife.

“Under such circumstances, she assumed that I would be willing to fork over the money to avoid public embarrassment.”

Well, to use the great adage of  the father of my grandmother Ruth Goldstock, from long before “gays” were “queers”, for all I know Carson’s self-serving and tidy account could be true but it sure sounds mighty queer to me.

For starters, why is Carson, a brain surgeon, taking non-emergency calls in the operating room?

And was the woman’s case really as frivolous as Carson described it?  

I know from extensive and unguarded conversations with plaintiffs’ lawyers that most are fairly picky about the cases they accept. Or, as one lawyer told me, “I never take any case that I am not prepared to take to trial.”

In Carson’s account, this woman offered no evidence she even met him and just cherry picked his public record.   It is hard to imagine that any attorney,  except maybe one trying to support a cocaine habit or pay for his quadruplets college tuition, would take a woman’s paternity lawsuit absent some kind of evidence--phone records, emails, etc--that established some kind of direct communication with the alleged father.

The story also sounded queer to Christopher. He did some digging and found other ways Carson’s story comes up short.

The good doctor actually previously gave a DNA sample to Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for his book researching the ancestry of prominent black Americans. More importantly, the Florida Department of Social Services would not have contacted an alleged father’s employer directly seeking money, a spokesperson told Christopher. And the claim could not have been dispatched so easily.  

“While Dr. Carson is vague about the resolution of the matter, unless the case was withdrawn it could only have been resolved with a genetic test or a hearing in a Florida court.”

Lawyers interviewed for this article said it could have been filed in either Maryland or Florida court. Paternity claims against Carson could not be located in either state’s online court records.

The Maryland Department of Human Services says any wage garnishments or determinations of financial obligations would be sealed from public view. The Florida spokeswoman told Christopher that child support cases are confidential and only released with the consent of both parties.  

This reporter is petitioning the Maryland and Florida courts to immediately unseal any legal filings related to the paternity claim given that the matter speaks directly to Carson’s integrity and is of great public concern.

What is the name of the woman who sued? How was it resolved? And under what circumstances? Was there a financial settlement?  In his article, Carson strongly implies he didn’t pay off the woman but stopped short of saying that explicitly.  

Carson’s spokesman, Armstrong Williams, who settled one credible male sexual harassment lawsuit and was recently slapped with another, did not respond to questions.

But maybe Trump’s people should start asking Carson about this matter directly--before the FBI does.

Kessler does not personally think the lawsuit would necessarily be prohibitive. "A lawsuit of the kind you mentioned would not pose a problem in this case in my opinion."

But is this really the kind of fight Trump wants to pick?  Over somebody who is utterly unqualified for the position anyway?

Evan Gahr, press critic for the late New York Post editorial page editor Eric Breindel, is Washington Gadfly columnist for the Daily Caller and the Agendas media columnist for the New York Observer

@EvanGahr