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• Embarrassments Dog Iowa Front-Runner Huckabee  

Michael Huckabee once accepted $40,000 in contributions from the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds to campaign against a national cigarette tax proposed by Hillary Clinton. But later, Mr. Huckabee ignored his sponsors and imposed his own tax on cigarettes. . . .

The donation, former Huckabee consultants J.J. Vigneault and Greg Graves told Newsweek, was to fund a speaking tour aimed at Christian evangelicals in which Mr. Huckabee would condemn Mrs. Clinton's health care proposals, which included a cigarette tax. Mr. Huckabee says he had no knowledge of the funds from the tobacco company and that he cannot recall meetings with executives from J.R. Reynolds, though he acknowledged the events may have slipped his memory.

"I don't recall those meetings. I'm not saying they never happened. But I don't have any recollection of them. If they can show me pictures of me there, that might help," he told Newsweek. "I fully complied with every bit of the law. I don't even know who all the donors were. They sure didn't get anything out of me," he said.

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