evidence: "Jacksonians," as the president’s supporters were called, were also quick to smell a conspiracy. Shortly after Lawrence was taken into custody, accusations began to fly suggesting he was in cahoots with a seemingly endless list of the president’s political foes. Jackson was among the many who believed a plot was afoot—some reports have him yelling "I know where this came from!" during the attack—and he soon accused Whig Senator George Poindexter of having hired Lawrence to gun him down. "He would have attempted it himself long ago if he had had the courage," he supposedly added. Jackson even produced affidavits from two men who claimed to have seen Lawrence visit the senator’s home, but both witnesses were proven unreliable. Poindexter was easily cleared of any wrongdoing, and Jackson’s opponents had a field day with what they considered a failed attempt to destroy a political rival. In a scathing report, Niles’ Weekly Register characterized the affair as the "foulest and filthiest tissue of wicked and willful falsehoods that ever was stewed-up to feed the morbid appetites of the basest of mankind…"