Tea Party-backed candidate Bill Randall, who is vying to capture North Carolina's 13th district U.S. House seat, recently speculated that there may have been "some sort of collusion" between the government and BP that may have caused the massive oil spill continuing to plague the Gulf Coast.
"Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion," Randall said at a press conference Tuesday. "I don't know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak."
Randall, who is competing against Bernie Reeves in a June 22 runoff to take on Democratic Rep. Brad Miller in November, went on to elaborate on his theory of what happened once efforts to contain the spill fell short and the situation began to spiral out of control:
"But then it got beyond what was anticipated, and we had an explosion and loss of life. And, oh man, now we have panic. Is there a cover up going on? I'm not saying there necessarily is. But I think there's enough facts on the table for people that (they) really need to do some investigative research and find out what went on with that and get a subpoena of records and everything else."
The News Observer reports that when Randall was pressed on what incentive government and BP would have to conspire to create the environmental catastrophe, the Tea Party-backed hopeful "said he had no idea but reiterated that the issue needed to be the subject of investigation."
When Reeves' camp was asked for comment on Randall's oil spill conspiracy theory, a spokesman for the congressional hopeful reportedly said: "Does Bill Randall also think we didn't land on the moon?"
WATCH: Bill Randall Floats Conspiracy Theory: 'Maybe They Wanted It To Leak' (VIDEO)