Newt Gingrich has been cleared!!
Remember the uproar regarding Newt's "ethics violations?" People can refresh their memory by reading an article I wrote in 1997 about these charges. In brief, David Bonior brought 75 ethics charges against Newt, 74 which were found to have no merit whatsoever (and people say that Ken Starr is on a "witch hunt?"). The last charge, whether Newt funded his college class "Renewing American Civilization" properly, was too complicated a tax issue for the committee to investigate on its own, so they brought in an outside tax expert to investigate. Two charges arose out of this investigation.
The first 'charge' from the ethics committee is that he "may have" violated tax law by using tax-deductible contributions from nonprofit organizations to teach an allegedly partisan college course.
The second 'charge' from the committee is that, in the course of the investigation, Newt provided false information to the committee. And what was this "false information?" Newt testified that the above contributions were in fact made by those organizations to "Renewing American Civilization." He filed papers that stated the very same thing. This is never a fact that anyone was trying to hide. But one paper filed with the committee stated that those groups did not make the contributions. For this, there was an uproar about Newt's ethics, and he was fined.
Basically, Newt was fined $300,000 because he didn't read his lawyers' documents carefully. I could really get into the hypocrisy of this in light of the fact that people want to excuse Bill Clinton for lying under oath, (maybe if the course Newt had taught was about SEX the Democrats would feel differently) but that's not the point of this article.
Well, after a 3.5 year probe, after Newt paid the $300,000 fine, the IRS announced on February 3, 1999, that it found NO IMPROPRIETIES IN THE TAX FILINGS of Gingrich and the sponsoring Progress and Freedom Foundation. The IRS said the principles taught in the course were not of use only in political campaigns. "The ... course taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation, or a politician."
Well isn't that nice - and isn't that what Newt had been saying all along?
In other words, the ethics charges David Bonior filed against Newt were ALL bogus. Every single one of them. In the end, what was Newt's "ethics problems"? One of the papers filed by his lawyers had an error and Newt didn't catch it. That little oversight cost $300,000.
Some might say "vindication is vindication" and Newt should just be tickled about this. . . but would YOU feel better if you've already lost $300,000 and your job in the process?
Where are the cries about how long and how much money was spent on this investigation? Where are all the news stories about this vindication? Granted, there have been some news stories but certainly not that many. Perhaps the news isn't quite as big when it's Newt who is the one in the right and his accusers are the ones in the wrong.
Embarrassing if true and a sorry excuse, which was disputed by Newt's first lawyer, Jan Baran. "I wish to make clear that my firm did not submit any material information to the ethics committee without Mr. Gingrich's prior review and approval," Baran told the Washington Post, adding that he believes "that is the committee's view as well."
You can believe what you want to believe, but in the court of public opinion, Newt will lose this case once again. If Newt tries to make this a case of a witch hunt by partisan Dems, the votes in the Ehtics committee and the House where 90% of his Rep colleagues voted against him will give the lie to this assertion. You can bet if Newt becomes the nominee, this case will be brought front and center along with his womanizing and infedelity. Newt is the ultimate Washington insider who has a ton of skeletons in his closet. I am sure the Dems are hiding the most damaging stuff until after the nomination process. We need to make this election about Obama, not a flawed Rep.