Just as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas suspected all along, Jon Huntsman Sr., the billionaire father of the 2012 presidential campaign’s least successful candidate, was the source for Harry Reid’s bombshell claim that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid any income taxes for ten years. That’s according to Double Down: Game Change 2012, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s yet-to-be-released look at the 2012 race. Huntsman Sr. flatly denied the accusation at the time, and the rumor was eventually proven utterly false. The book also reveals that, while serving as ambassador to China, Huntsman the Younger “repeatedly assured top White House officials that he was not considering a Republican presidential bid, even as he was meeting with potential campaign strategists during a trip to his Washington home around Christmas 2010.”
Ironically, when Huntsman did run, he spent much of the campaign speaking out against America’s “trust deficit.”
