From Thompson for President Communications Director Todd Harris.

Statement on Romney's South Carolina Cover-Up

"Fred Thompson entered the race for president just days ago, talking about uniting our country around a core set of conservative beliefs. According to the Washington Post, it is now clear that while Fred Thompson is working to bring our country together, an increasingly desperate Mitt Romney and his campaign are already hard at work to divide us, practicing the lowest kind of politics.

"Today's half-baked cover-up attempt by the Romney campaign does not even pass the laugh test. The Romney campaign has paid Warren Tompkins and his various firms hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wesley Donehue works for Tompkins and is listed on Tompkins' own webpage as an associate of the firm. According to PalmettoScoop.com, Donehue 'runs the daily operations of their political consulting firm, Tompkins, Thompson and Sullivan, including direct mail efforts and a number of Web-based ventures.' [Emphasis added]

"There is no room in our party for this kind of smut. As the top executive of his own campaign, Gov. Romney should take full responsibility for this type of high-tech gutter politics and issue an immediate apology. In addition, Gov. Romney should exercise some of his much-touted executive acumen, take control of his flailing campaign, and immediately terminate anyone and everyone related to this outrage.

"This latest episode only serves to prove what many voters are already figuring out: Mitt Romney will do anything, say anything, smear any opponent and flip flop on any position in order to win. The American people in general and the Republican Party in particular deserve better than this."

I think Fred is fully in the game.

The Romney campaign responded to RCP:

The site has no direct affiliation to our campaign, and we had no knowledge of its development.

Once we received inquiries about the site, we discovered it was created by an individual who parked the site temporarily on the company server space of a firm whose financial partner is a consultant to the campaign- Mr. Tompkins. Mr. Tompkins also had absolutely no knowledge about the development of the site or that it was temporarily parked on the firm's server.

We informed this party that as a result of that server use, we were receiving inquires about the site. We made it clear that we did not approve of the site and asked for immediate action to make sure it was again in no way affiliated with the campaign.

The person responsible is not an employee of ours, but we took immediate action to make sure it was clear the site was not affiliated with the campaign.

It is also my understanding that the site was taken off-line by whoever administers it.