Ted Cruz has a lot of explaining to do regarding the actions of his campaign staff. Cruz s campaign took a report that Ben Carson was diverting to Florida after the Iowa Caucus, without heading to New Hampshire, and very selectively cherry picked it to mean that Ben Carson was suspending his campaign and/or dropping out of the presidential race. This was immediately followed by a plea to Cruz workers to tell all Carson caucus-goers this falsehood while encouraging them to caucus for Ted Cruz instead.Carson s own campaign clarified at 6:53 pm he was not dropping out of the race. Cruz s deputy Iowa campaign manager sent an email at 6:56 pm, 3 minutes after Carson clarified things, saying Carson was taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week.  The email also said to inform any Carson caucus goers of this and convince them to support Cruz instead. The first phone call by the campaign to a Cruz precinct captain in Iowa came in at 7:07 pm, with the same instructions to tell Carson supporters to caucus for Cruz instead. Another phone call came in at 7:29 pm. Both calls came after CNN also clarified that Carson was not suspending his campaign.The Cruz campaign has so far insisted that they were acting on an  accurate  report that Carson was suspending campaigning after the Iowa caucus. The thing is, there doesn t seem to be any accurate report that exists. Cruz had blamed CNN for reporting that Carson suspended his campaign, but CNN did no such thing. Iowa Republican Steve King linked to CNN s report then inferred on his own that Carson was quitting the campaign. King clearly was clueless, because CNN said no such thing. However, the fact Cruz took King s word for it without reading the actual article he linked is hard to believe. Cruz might claim they just made a mistake but it seriously strains credulity to think they are that inept.Nancy Bliesman, a precinct captain for Cruz received the voicemails because she didn t take the calls as they were coming in. This prevented her from unknowingly lying to Carson voters. It isn t immediately known how many other precinct captains or other campaign workers may have gotten the misinformation and acted on it. One thing is for sure, this puts a stain on Cruz s  win  and could prove problematic for him in future caucuses once voters get wind of his shenanigans.Listen to the voicemails that were sent by the Cruz campaign below:Featured image from Flickr