Geraghty sends up a flare. Your culprit: An Oregon firm called Moore-Information that’s done polling work for Republicans out west, including … Ron Paul. I find the coincidence between this news and the rumors of the big Mitt scandal that are swirling today to be mighty curious, but per the AG’s press release, it looks like there won’t be any more action in the case until January 16th. Joe Carter, Huckabee’s research director, hinted news would break before the primary on the 8th, so unless someone’s about to come forward and drop a bombshell about who it was who retained Moore to do the push poll, the two scoops probably aren’t related to each other.

America’s Greatest Patriot wouldn’t do something this shady, would he?

Update: Not only are the gloves off, the brass knuckles are on.

“If you look at their list of clients, they’re all Republicans. … They’re a Republican operation, they weren’t hired by Hillary Clinton,” said Chuck Douglas, a former congressman who is a top McCain adviser in New Hampshire.

“It’s obvious it’s one of the presidential campaigns. We’ve long suspected – and still suspect – it’s Gov. Romney who wanted to test the Mormon issue and McCain’s record and see what messages would work. It’s up to that campaign and all the others to just say a very simple statement. It has to come from the top of their campaigns: ‘We had nothing directly or indirectly to do with this 260-page report or the 400 questionnaires that were filled out.'”

Team Mitt says no way.