Speaker Gingrich says it is false and defamatory!

Great Wire - Fox News Insider ^ | January 6, 2012 | Greta Van Susteren

[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."

[true believer forever]

For Newt Supporters, don't give up, don't give in. Newt is a fighter. He will fight. Just do your part and double down!

[org.whodat]

Noot plea bargained the fine to have the other charges dropped, now he is claiming he did not do that. Bull!

[Parley Baer]

I love it. Newt is really fighting back. I still think he is the one to take on Obama. GO NEWT!

[TitansAFC]

Newt is already playing with Mitt's small mind, which is why Mitt still views him as his chief opponent. Newt has been raising Mitt's expectations in NH, setting Romney up to lose even if he wins, thus reversing his Iowa fortunes. Team Romney has started to realize Newt has been setting them up, and have been trying to temper expectations. Now Newt is making sure that everyone in the universe realizes that Mitt Romney is behind the negative ads, by tying Mitt to his SuperPAC and making it a known meme. By making it the news of the day, every day, Newt will tattoo negative headlines on Mitt for every news cycle. He will add paid advertising to this as well, making it a two-pronged assault on Romney. Newt has also become the first person to go directly after Romney; and as you can see, he is not going to relent. Mitt essentially mocked Newt for expecting Mitt to honor the 11th Commandment, so Newt is going to show Mitt what it's like to face 24/7 negative attacks. Mitt is going to be sorry he picked a fight with a much, much smarter and savvier man than himself.

[Da Coyote]

Heck, the MSM runs Obama adds, so obviously they have no qualms whatsoever about broadcasting bold face lies.

[piytar]

The FACT remains he was NOT “fined.” PERIOD.

[katiedidit1]

Holy Moly!!!!!!!!! s’it is going to hit the fan. “Through the above repudiation of the inaccurate statements included in the script of the subject advertisements, your station has been given notice and absolute knowledge of the malicious falsity and defamatory nature of the aforementioned political communications. As such, any further attempt to broadcast or communicate such advertisements or any of their

inaccurate content to the general public will expose your station to potential liability for both libel and false light invasion of privacy. In turn, and as previously stated above, we do hereby request that your station immediately cease airing any such false advertisements and completely refrain from broadcasting their content until such time as the aforementioned defamatory statements have been removed.

Please govern your actions accordingly. We look forward to receiving your prompt reply to this correspondence and request that any questions regarding its contents be directed to my attention.

Very truly yours,

Stefan C. Passantino National Counsel, Newt 2012

[sheikdetailfeather]

Fox has been literally crucifying Newt. I am glad he is letting them know where he draws the line. They are not able to just be for Romney. They must attempt to paint Newt as crazed, etc.. They deserve to be blasted.

[Da Coyote]

Oops, I had an Obama moment...that’s “ads” not” adds”.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Is this thread staying, or going?

Anyway, Gingrich appears to be right. He was not "fined" by an ethics committee.

House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.

He was penalized by the REPUBLICAN MAJORITY in the house. He was not "fined" by an ethics committee.

Why Gingrich thinks this is BETTER for him, I can't say. I'd rather blame my penalty on some stupid bipartisan committee than have to admit that my republican colleagues who had previously made me speaker had now penalized me $300,000 to repay the costs of the ethics committee investigation that were caused by me giving misleading information.

Gingrich agreed to this settlement, and admitted to wrongdoing:

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans yesterday morning, the speaker noted his agreement to accept the sanction, which the ethics committee approved on a 7 to 1 vote Friday night, and said he wanted to get the matter behind him, according to lawmakers who attended.

I doubty it he took this to court that any judge is going to rule there is a substantive difference between claiming he was "fined" and what actually happened. But maybe he'd win.

However, it's a lot easier just to threaten lawsuits and hope you can cow people into doing your bidding. We've seen Obama pull that off time and again.

[Leader_Of_The _Conservatives]

Actually.....

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/dec/21/restore-our-future/did-newt-gingrich-pay-300000-ethics-fine-back-1990/

[katiedidit1]

Everyone needs to look into Romney’s super pac! Restore Our Future. It will send chills down your spine. Mega millions coming in and some is global. The SCOTUS ruled 5 to 4 it is legal. It is massive. Forti is Romney’s Karl Rove and Forti was kind of “groomed” by Rove. Bain is also involved and some donor that gave a huge sum of money and shortly afterwards dissolved.
It is true that Romney didn’t win Iowa...the super pac won Iowa. I am so delighted that Newt is starting to expose this to the American voters. This election is too precious to toss to the wolves. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NEWT!

[Sola Veritas]

Good for you Newt. It is time for libel to stop. This superpac is harming the election process and the exercise of true free speech.

I just wished he could tie the adds back to Romney so he could so Romney personally. It needs to happen.

[ConfidentConservative]

GO Newt Gingrich!

This slander needs to be put where it belongs in the garbage.

http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/newt.html

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.

Now, if some people already see the irony of Newt being blasted for “lying to congress” because one of his lawyers’ documents was in error while people argue that we should ignore that fact that Bill Clinton lied under oath, here’s a little more irony for you.

Democrats have argued over and over again that even if Clinton DID lie in his deposition in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit, it doesn’t matter because the suit was eventually thrown out of court. Thus, any lies were “not material” and so not valid grounds for punishment, and certainly not impeachment. Well, the IRS has found that there were NO IMPROPRIETIES IN THE TAX FILINGS. Using the same rationale as Clinton’s supporters, shouldn’t Newt Gingrich be allowed to get his $300,000 back, since any misstatements he might have made are now “not material?”

David Bonior stated a couple of years ago that “Mr. Gingrich engaged in a pattern of tax fraud.” Well, it now looks as if Bonior was way out in left field on all 75 of his accusations. How about a censure of David Bonior for filing 7 unfounded charges against him, so Newt can at least get his good name back? But how could I forget? We are in the age of forgiveness, where we just “forgive and forget” perjury and obstruction of justice, so I guess that means forgiving David Bonior too. Too bad people weren’t as “forgiving” when it was Newt Gingrich in the hot seat.

[onyx]

Safe to ping this time!

Conservatism, experience, results, eloquence, statesmanship, knowledge.
SERIOUS solutions to SERIOUS problems!
The Conservative who practices Capitalism and gets hated for it!


Newt Gingrich 2012.

[org.whodat]

Sort of like his position on amnesty, it is not amnesty if you call it something else, and he paid the house 300000 large in a plea deal so the other 84 charges were dropped. It it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it is a duck. And it looks like a fine to me. And in noots world lobbying is discussing historical trends, lol.

[katiedidit1]

Eighty four politically motivated ethics charges were filed against Newt when he was Speaker of the House regarding the use of tax exempt funds for a college course he taught titled “Renewing American Civilization.” Eighty-three of the eighty-four charges were found to be without merit and dropped. The remaining charge had to do with contradictory documents prepared by Newt’s lawyer supplied during the course of the investigation. Newt took responsibility for the error and agreed to reimburse the committee the cost of the investigation into that discrepancy. In 1999, after a 3 ½ year investigation, the Internal Revenue Service (under President Bill Clinton, nonetheless) concluded that Gingrich did not violate any tax laws, leading renowned CNN Investigative Reporter Brooks Jackson to remark on air “it turns out [Gingrich] was right and those who accused him of tax fraud were wrong.”

[onyx]

If it looks like a troll and posts like a troll, by God, it must be troll!

Howdy, troll!

[true believer forever]

got a link? got a name? I love Newt, but I also love Perry...

[ConfidentConservative]

LOL, Love it... I used to say a “brain fart” but I like your comment much better!

(Thanks for the laugh!)