Posted on 01/06/2012 8:03:28 PM PST by true believer forever
"It has recently come to our attention that your station has either been asked to run, or may soon be asked to run, various advertising spots produced by the Mitt Romney aligned SuperPAC “Restore Our Future” or Romney for President, the principal campaign committee of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Included among the Romney advertisements submitted to your station for broadcast are likely to be various advertisements which specifically mention Speaker Gingrich and purport to quote or reference the findings of a 1997 report issued by the House Select Committee on Ethics (the “Report”).
The content of these advertisements state and/or suggest that, Speaker Gingrich was “fined” $300,000 for “violations” of congressional rules. These statements are NOT TRUE. In fact, ANY statement, suggestion, or innuendo that Speaker Gingrich was assessed a congressional fine for violations of House Ethics Rules is fundamentally false and misleading. If published after your receipt of this letter, it will be a knowing publication of a false statement. As such, it represents a defamatory communication which exposes this station to potential civil liability. In turn, we do hereby DEMAND that your station immediately REFUSE, and if started, CEASE airing any such advertisements and refrain from broadcasting their content until such time as the libelous statements have been removed."
(Excerpt) Read more at gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com ...
You are a mouth for the left. STOP acting so self righteous - any one with any wisdom and discernment can see right through you. Your diarrhea of the mouth is what has outed you. We’ve seen what you have ‘learned’.
Go scrutinize Mitt - I DARE YOU. Then do the same for Barry. Those are America’s enemies.
Numerous statements from elected officials and other individuals associated with the Committee’s investigation make it clear that the sanction levied against Speaker Gingrich was nothing more than a cost assessment. In presenting the Report to the Members of the House, former Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R-CT) characterized the Speaker’s payment in the following manner:
“Likewise in past cases where the committee imposed monetary sanctions on a Member, the committee found that the Member had been personally enriched by the misconduct. The committee made no such finding against Representative Gingrich, yet recommends that a cost reimbursement of $300,000 be paid to the House by him.”
Likewise, Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the Investigation Subcommittee, described the Report findings in the Congressional Record as follows:
“Based upon the allegation, the violations we found, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct on a 7-to-1 vote, full committee now, entire committee, recommended the following penalty. It recommended a reprimand and a cost assessment of $300,000. . . . We set $300,000 as the estimated costs of that portion of the investigation that dealt with clearing up the misstatements that we received, which may be begun to be prepared in Mr. Gingrich’s law firm, but for which he is responsible as Member of the House.”
Indeed, even Democrat Congressman (now Senator) Ben Cardin (D-MD) agreed on the proper classification of the Speaker’s $300,000 payment. In his remarks to the House urging adoption of the Ethics Committee Report and Resolution, then-Congressman Cardin described the proposed sanction against Speaker Gingrich in the following manner:
“It provides a reprimand plus a required $300,000 contribution by Mr. Gingrich to the cost of these proceedings.”
Moreover, in the transcript of the sanctions proceedings before the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Special Counsel to the House Ethics Committee James Cole could not have made it more clear when he responded to questions from Congressman Thomas Sawyer (D-OH) as follows:
“In addition, this is not a fine that we are recommending. The rule book says that a fine is an appropriate sanction when a member has received personal gain. And as Mr. Smith had asked and as I told him, no, we did not find that.”
In sum, there was never any fine levied against Speaker Gingrich as a result of the findings of the House Ethics Committee Report referenced in the subject advertisements. Any statement to the contrary in any broadcast communication produced on behalf of Governor Romney, any other presidential candidate, or any SuperPAC is all at once false, misleading, and defamatory.
Glad you & Newt clear that up. :)
“It provides a reprimand plus a required $300,000 contribution by Mr. Gingrich to the cost of these proceedings.”
So it wasn’t a fine, it was just an amount of money he was required to pay. Got it.
Can you supply a factual source for that? I'm not calling you out - I'd just like to read where it is a matter of public record there was a plea bargain.
“If I were any of them, I would think twice about running for president... “
The point that was lost on you, is that we are ALL them.
“org.whodat” comes on every Newt and just about every other thread with his B/S. He reminds me of “pissant” with Palin.
This person is caustic to our collective cause here at FR.
This Troll lives his life with a glass half empty, not half full.
Newt may bring some baggage with him but so what? At least 50% of real American’s have that same baggage. Why do we wonder why no one wants to get into politics? Because they have similar baggage and they have seen what the MSM has done to past candidates.
All of us need to be getting real right now. We are coming up to the most important election in the history of our Republic. The only other would be the election of 1860.
In this election we have 3-4 Supreme Court appointees. This is the MAJOR point of this election and who is talking about it? If we allow Obama to get another term our country is done!!!!!! Imagine if he get’s to appoint those judge’s? Game over for our country.
So if you Trolls want to continue to bash any of our candidates think about what the outcome may be. People talk about the senate and house. The brass ring IS getting the White House for those court appointees.
God save our kid’s and baby’s.
PS: If I have grammer or spelling issues with this post I really don’t care. Our Country is at the brink of collapse and when that time comes no one will give a shit about grammer or spelling......PERIOD.
Protocol Ping!
“org.whodat” comes on every Newt and just about every other thread with his B/S. He reminds me of “pissant” with Palin.
This person is caustic to our collective cause here at FR.
This Troll lives his life with a glass half empty, not half full.
Newt may bring some baggage with him but so what? At least 50% of real American’s have that same baggage. Why do we wonder why no one wants to get into politics? Because they have similar baggage and they have seen what the MSM has done to past candidates.
All of us need to be getting real right now. We are coming up to the most important election in the history of our Republic. The only other would be the election of 1860.
In this election we have 3-4 Supreme Court appointees. This is the MAJOR point of this election and who is talking about it? If we allow Obama to get another term our country is done!!!!!! Imagine if he get’s to appoint those judge’s? Game over for our country.
So if you Trolls want to continue to bash any of our candidates think about what the outcome may be. People talk about the senate and house. The brass ring IS getting the White House for those court appointees.
God save our kid’s and baby’s.
PS: If I have grammer or spelling issues with this post I really don’t care. Our Country is at the brink of collapse and when that time comes no one will give a shit about grammer or spelling......PERIOD.
This is the first preemptive strike I recall seeing. Newt knows the lies most likely to take hold and is calling them the lies they are before they hit the airwaves - good for him.
That is not true. He paid the amount voluntarily. Only one count, regarding him teaching a course stuck.
I think the bottom line is clear, Romney and his minions are going to do what they can to win....Maybe this is the way you beat Obama...
Just wait till the next debate.... Newt will eviscerate this country club mannequin and chop his guts into little pieces.
And more importantly the obama camp will get a good view at whats coming
I see you are still savoring the liberal ejaculate about Gingrich from the 1990s. Conservatives like you seem to enjoy the liberal destruction of our own.
I'm sure you loved the Cain nonsense as well.
Sometimes things can backfire though. He is now making sure MORE people konw about his fine/non-fine. Sounds like a fine to me... I like Newt, though. Some of the best moments in this campaign season have been him at the debates and in the media articulating what matters most.
Troll?
I’ve been on FR longer than you have, maine-iac7.
When you cannot come up with a good retort to another’s post or you simply don’t like what someone else posts, you devolve into name-calling.
sniff sniff
If you bother to search, my current opinion of Romney is about the same one I had in 2008.
But hey, your comment is mild compared to those I have gotten when I thrashed the Cain candidacy and the Thompson candidacy. [Where are they now?]
Gingrich got fined or penalized or whatever he wants to call it. His parsing and nuancing puts him on about the same level as BJ Clinton and John Kerry. It happened. And he had to borrow money from Bob Dole to pay part of it. Whether it was charged by the Ethics Committee or House GOP is nit-picking — the Ethics Committee ended up with the money.
In summary, he was charged $300k and he paid it — in installments, partly with money borrowed from Bob Dole. And he resigned his speakership, in disgrace.
Most of them also remember giving the boot to McCollumb who was perceived as a professional politician in favor of Rick Scott.
Florida is not going to be an easy State to win. If you want to call this “propaganda” bury your head in some nice Florida sand and wait til Jan 30th. Newt will not win Florida.
Well, I don’t like Newt either. He is not a conservative. Amazing how several months ago folks here on FR recognized that fact!
Now we are being called all kinds of names if we continue to voice the same opinion of Newt now vs. 3 months ago.
I am not going to vote for someone I don’t trust in the White House. And that someone is Newt....a chameleon in a conservative crayola box.
“If you think this is tough wait until the O people start on him.”
King obuma needs a 500 car train to carry all his baggage. Buckwheat will spend all his time hiding and arranging passage to Kenya when the charges against him start rolling in.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.