WASHINGTON - A federal probe into secret payments to a key Iowa supporter of Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign has connections to at least three longtime aides to the former Texas congressman.

The fallout was felt immediately over the Labor Day weekend when Jesse Benton, campaign manager to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said he was resigning. He cited what he called "inaccurate press accounts" of his alleged role in recruiting an Iowa state senator who pleaded guilty last week to taking money under the table.

Benton, 36, has long ties to the Paul family, including Ron Paul and his son, potential 2016 GOP presidential contender Rand Paul. In a statement, Benton, married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, denied a whistleblower's allegations that he was involved in negotiating $73,000 in campaign payments to former Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson, who has since resigned from office.

He called the reports "politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue."

Former Paul aide Dennis Fusaro, a conservative activist in Virginia and one of the main whistleblowers in the case, was instrumental in bringing the Sorenson payments to light by releasing records of private emails and phone calls in 2012 involving Benton and others on the Paul campaign.

Pay-to-play scandal

Benton, who was national campaign chairman of Ron Paul's White House bid, is one of at least three Paul campaign official who have been linked to multiple federal and state investigations stemming from the pay-to-play scandal in the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

A special investigator for the Iowa Supreme Court identified Dimitri Kesari, Paul's deputy national campaign manager, as the source of a $25,000 check that Sorenson never cashed. And a confidential memo released by Fusaro that outlines efforts to recruit Sorenson from the rival campaign of Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann was addressed to national campaign manager John Tate, now president of the Campaign for Liberty, a libertarian group founded by Ron Paul.

Megan Stiles, a spokeswoman for Ron Paul and the Campaign for Liberty, declined comment Tuesday. David Warrington, who served as general counsel for Paul's 2012 presidential campaign, did not return requests for comment. Kesari's attorney, Jesse Binnall, also did not return calls.

One of Fusaro's earlier audiotapes recorded Benton suggesting that his true loyalties were with Rand Paul and not McConnell.

"I'm sort of holding my nose for two years because what we're doing here is going to be a big benefit to Rand in '16, so that's my long vision," Benton said.

Rand Paul spokesman Sergio Gor did not respond Tuesday to several inquiries about Benton, who managed the younger Paul's 2010 Senate campaign in Kentucky.

Kesari, a key figure in the probe, also became the talk of political circles earlier this year when he turned up in a photo with Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman attending a hot-tub party after the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Donny Ferguson, a top aide to Stockman, did not respond to an inquiry about Kesari's ties to the congressman. Both Kesari and Ferguson have been active in the National Right to Work Committee, a conservative political nonprofit group that has also included Fusaro and Tate.

Trio named by FEC

Benton, Kesari and Tate were all named in a Federal Elections Commission complaint brought earlier this year by former Bachmann campaign organizer Peter Waldron, who had previously complained of improper payments to Sorenson by the Bachmann campaign.

"I felt that I had new evidence that Sorenson was paid, he was bribed, and the story didn't end with Michele Bachmann," Waldron, a Christian evangelist, said in an interview Tuesday.

Sorenson, 42, of Milo, Iowa, was seen as a rising tea party figure in 2011 with strong ties to Christian conservatives, an important constituency in the Iowa GOP presidential caucuses. After first signing on with Bachmann, he unexpectedly switched over to Paul days before the January 2012 caucuses.

Bachmann, furious about the sudden defection, publicly accused Sorenson of taking money from the Paul campaign, a charge both Paul and Sorenson denied.

Fusaro, who had a falling-out with Benton over the incident, said that even if Benton did not personally know about the payments, he had a duty as national campaign chairman to investigate public accusations that were making national headlines.

"He was there," Fusaro said. "You'd have to be dumb as a bucket of stones not to know that Kent Sorenson was paid by both campaigns, under the table."

According to a statement of facts filed with Sorenson's plea agreement on Wednesday, Sorenson admitted that as Bachmann's Iowa chairman in late 2011, he met and secretly negotiated with operatives for Paul's campaign to switch his support.

Federal officials have not identified the Paul operatives who could be implicated.

Secret payments traced

The eventual payments of $73,000 included monthly installments of about $8,000 each and were funneled first to a film production company, then through a second company, and finally to Sorenson and his spouse, according to court documents.

According to documents released by Fusaro, one of Sorenson's selling points to Paul operatives was that he had access to a list of Christian home school parents in Iowa. The list, allegedly stolen from Bachmann's staff, became the subject of a lawsuit that her campaign eventually settled out of court.

Bachmann placed sixth in the caucus. Paul finished third, behind Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.