Midway through a routine Internet search, James Carter IV stumbled upon a video that just didn't seem right.

The grandson of former President Jimmy Carter and a self-fashioned Democratic opposition researcher, the younger Carter had watched countless hours of footage of Republican Mitt Romney and made it a habit to search YouTube every few days for keywords like "Romney" and "Republicans."

But on this day in August, one clip jumped out. There was Romney, in an undisclosed location, bluntly discussing a visit to a Chinese factory with substandard conditions.

"The hidden camera video — it was all blurred out at the beginning, and it was mysterious," Carter said. "It piqued my interest."

Something told him there might be more there than the brief clip posted on the YouTube channel "Anne Onymous." Although not affiliated with any campaign or super PAC, Carter had made it a personal mission to help get Democrats elected in 2012 — and to do his part to push back against Romney's relentless campaign-trail mockery of his grandfather.

So Carter, 35, of Atlanta, set out track down the source of the video. He sent a message to the YouTube user seeking details. No luck. But then, after sharing links to the video on Twitter, Carter realized he had a new follower with the same name as the YouTube account. He quickly shot off a direct message.

"They were wary at first," Carter said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But they did respond."


In a string of Internet conversations, Carter showed the source evidence that he had helped David Corn, a journalist with the magazine Mother Jones, report a story about Global-Tech Appliances Inc., a Chinese firm that Romney's Bain Capital briefly invested in. Both Carter and the source suspected it was that firm's factory that Romney was speaking about in the video.

"That gave me credibility," Carter said. "They opened up to me a little bit."

Soon after, Carter persuaded the source to trust Corn with the full video — on the condition that he keep the source's identity a secret. Corn ran with it, using clues in the video to triangulate when and where it had been recorded.