An alleged smear campaign involving major Republican candidates for Minnesota governor has burst into social media — and apparently been squelched.

Here’s how nasty it was: A fake Facebook account featured an accusation — with no evidence — that Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, who’s running for governor, is a pedophile.

And the fake Facebook account was created by a campaign staffer for former state representative and former Republican Party chairman Keith Downey, who’s also running for governor. Downey has disavowed the incident, calling the comment “disgusting.”

The fake Facebook page — Never Trumpers for Jeff Johnson — was no longer available Thursday, so the comment can’t be viewed.

Johnson himself made it public in his own Facebook post Wednesday evening.

Here’s what Johnson said: “The fake Never-Trumpers page was not just dishonest, it was quite vile. One post, which was on the site for months, accused me of being a pedophile (yes, you read that correctly):

‘Jeff Johnson is a sick pervert who belongs behind bars. He groped my teenage son last year and sent him lewd pictures. Jeff is a disgusting bastard.’ ”

In his post outing the smear campaign, Johnson described an ordeal that lasted “several weeks” involving trying — unsuccessfully — to get Facebook to take the page down and going back and forth with Downey. Johnson said the page was “was getting significant traffic and causing problems for the campaign.”

FULL-TIME DOWNEY STAFFER

According to statements from Downey and Johnson, the creator of the page is a full-time Downey campaign staffer, who remains on his campaign. According to Johnson, she has created other fake social media accounts that have trolled his campaign.

Attempts by the Pioneer Press to reach the woman for comment were unsuccessful Thursday, and a spokesman for Downey did not respond to inquiries about her role in the campaign.

Speaking with reporters Thursday about a campaign endorsement he had received, Johnson declined to discuss the smear campaign, saying his Facebook post speaks for itself.

In the post, Johnson didn’t seem satisfied with Downey’s response.

“I’ve spoken to Keith about this and he acknowledges it’s true and that the staffer still has a key full-time role in his campaign, but justifies it by saying he told her to disassociate herself from the site when he learned of it,” Johnson wrote.

DOWNEY: SHE WASN’T ON STAFF AT THE TIME

In a statement to the Pioneer Press, Downey said that when the fake Facebook account was created, the woman wasn’t on his staff yet.

“To clarify the timeline, all this online activity occurred before the staffer was hired,” Downey said. “I was unaware at that time of the origins of this particular parody page. When I was made aware, I demanded that the page be taken down. And it was. I personally spoke with Jeff yesterday to assure him our campaign was not ever involved.”

Downey also said the pedophile comment was not made by the woman. He said the comment was in a review of the page — a type of comment that can’t individually be deleted. However, such comments can be hidden by the administrator of the page with a mouse-click. The Downey spokesman declined to comment on the contradiction.

Here’s that part of Downey’s statement: “In regard to the disgusting comment Jeff references, I completely agree that is shameful and unacceptable. To be clear, that vile comment was not a post from our staffer. It was a REVIEW comment by someone else. This is a known issue with Facebook that review comments are permanent and undeletable even by page administrators.”

JOHNSON: TRUMP IS ARROGANT BUT I SUPPORT HIM

The premise of the fake page is that Johnson opposes President Donald Trump — fighting words in the GOP field at this stage as they seek the party’s endorsement.

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AP source: Envelope addressed to White House contained ricin Johnson said that’s false; he voted for Trump, a spokesman said. In September 2016, Johnson penned a commentary in the Star Tribune calling on Republicans to vote for Trump.

He said Trump is “often arrogant and impulsive” and “occasionally offensive.” But then he added: “Oh, and by the way, I’ll be voting for him on Nov. 8.”

In addition to Downey and Johnson, the Republican field includes Woodbury Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens. State Rep. Matt Dean dropped out Thursday and endorsed Johnson.

In his post, Johnson said, “We need to all be together the minute we endorse a candidate — the nastier we get with each other, the more difficult that will be.”