Reason's Julian Sanchez and David Weigel have an investigative piece out today into who wrote the now-infamous Ron Paul newsletters. While their conclusion is really not a surprise, the authors tracked down on-the-record statements from some of Paul's former associates to bolster the rumors that have been floating around ever since The New Republic brought renewed attention to the newsletters.

Here are Sanchez and Weigel:

Ron Paul doesn't seem to know much about his own newsletters. The libertarian-leaning presidential candidate says he was unaware, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, of the bigoted rhetoric about African Americans and gays that was appearing under his name. He told CNN last week that he still has "no idea" who might have written inflammatory comments such as "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks" -- statements he now repudiates. Yet in interviews with reason, a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists -- including some still close to Paul -- all named the same man as Paul's chief ghostwriter: Ludwig von Mises Institute founder Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.

Read the whole thing. Sanchez and Weigel pull no punches in their report, and their conclusion is something that the Paul campaign should consider closely:

Yet those new supporters, many of whom are first encountering libertarian ideas through the Ron Paul Revolution, deserve a far more frank explanation than the campaign has as yet provided of how their candidate's name ended up atop so many ugly words. Ron Paul may not be a racist, but he became complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists -- and taking "moral responsibility" for that now means more than just uttering the phrase. It means openly grappling with his own past -- acknowledging who said what, and why. Otherwise he risks damaging not only his own reputation, but that of the philosophy to which he has committed his life.