Ben Carson’s family is flatly denying that they work for their father at the Housing And Urban Development in a nepotistic or nefarious manner.

A series of left-wing websites began propagating a conspiracy theory that HUD Secretary Carson was engaging in nepotism by secretly hiring his family to work inside the department. The claim, made on at least two different websites, originated in a Mother Jones report entitled: “Remember That Time We Were Worried About Ben Carson Being HUD Secretary? We Were Right.”

The reporter uses purely anecdotal evidence of Ben Carson’s son and wife being seen inside the HUD building and traveling with their father on agency visits to their hometown of Baltimore to allege that there is some nefarious activities going on.

Then there was the mystery of why Carson’s family was taking such a visible role in the department. There was the omnipresent Mrs. Carson. Even more striking, however, had been the active role of the secretary’s second-oldest son. Ben Carson Jr., who goes by B.J. and co-founded an investment firm in Columbia, Maryland, that specializes in infrastructure, health care and workforce development, was showing up on email chains within the department and appearing often at headquarters. One day, he was seen leaving the 10th-floor office of David Eagles, the new COO, who was crafting a HUD reorganization to accompany the cuts.

The article goes on to provide no further hard evidence of nepotism within the Carson family and ultimately admits Carson’s family may just be there to support him.

“It was also possible that Ben Jr., and his mom, were so often at his father’s side for just the reason Ben Jr. claimed, to provide support.”

At least one article alleging the patently false claims has printed a correction. At the bottom of their article, Newsone printed:

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly indicated that Ben Carson’s wife and son work at HUD. The headline and text of this story have been updated to reflect this correction.

The allegations are being called by the Carson family “the epitome of #Fakenews.” In a statement to The Daily Caller, Ben Carson’s Jr.’s wife, Merlynn Carson, said the claim is “patently false” and “another biased story written by someone looking to discredit my father-in-law because they dislike his politics.”

Here is Merlynn Carson’s full statement below: