When criticism of the newsletters was leveled against Paul during his 1996 congressional election, he did not deny writing the newsletters, but instead defended them and said that the material had been taken out of context. In later years, Paul said that the controversial material had been ghostwritten by members of a team that included 6 or 8 others and that, as publisher, not editor, he had not even been aware of the content of the controversial articles until years after they had been published. He eventually disavowed those passages, and stated that in 1996 his campaign advisers had thought denying authorship would be too confusing and that he had to live with the material published under his name.Some political commentators made note of the changing nature of the explanations he had provided over the years about his involvement with the newsletters.
An estranged former long-term aide of Paul, Eric Dondero, alleged that Paul was lying about his role in the production of the controversial newsletters.During the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign, in January 2012, the Washington Post reported that several of Paul's former associates said that Paul had been very involved in the production of the newsletters and had allowed the controversial material to be included as part of a deliberate strategy to boost profits. Paul's former secretary said, "It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product... He would proof it."Paul continued to deny the accusations and to disavow the material.
