Getting to the bottom of Gingrich’s ethics issues
In his cross-examination of Newt Gingrich last night, Rick Santorum claimed that Newt Gingrich had sat on the “biggest scandal to hit the Congress in 50 years,” the check-kiting scandal, because Gingrich was afraid to take on his own leadership. As Politico points out today, quoting a 1992 New York Times story: “His own 22 overdrafts, including a $9,463 check to the Internal Revenue Service, were the heaviest weapons against him in an anti-incumbent campaign waged by an underfinanced former state senator. After lavishing $1.1 million on the race, Gingrich survived, by 980 votes, and the district is so Republican that he seems a shoo-in in November.”
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Second, if you think you know all the scandals, all the ethics charges and all the embarrassing aspects of Gingrich’s past, you are kidding yourself. There is no guarantee that next week or next month, or in the fall if he is the nominee, that there aren’t other ethics, sex or political skeletons hanging in his closet. (Yeah, I picture a giant walk-in one.) Santorum said Republicans would spend every day worrying about the next shoe to drop if Gingrich were the nominee.
That explains why the Romney campaign is demanding that Gingrich turn over the confidential files that led to his ethics charges. Spokeswoman Gail Gitcho put out a statement that reads:
Given Speaker Gingrich’s newfound interest in disclosure and transparency, and his concern about an ‘October surprise,’ he should authorize the release of the complete record of the ethics proceedings against him. We know from Newt’s own statements that he turned over a million pages of documents. Nancy Pelosi, who sat on the ethics committee, said that this information contains damaging information. Nancy Pelosi is gleeful over the information she has on Speaker Gingrich, and Speaker Gingrich is concerned enough to threaten her with a rules violation. If Nancy Pelosi has this information, Barack Obama has this information.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/getting-to-the-bottom-of-gingrichs-ethics-issues/2012/01/20/gIQA9nYVEQ_blog.html
Is there more info that Pelosi has or has Jennifer Rubin got this wrong?
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