http://www.newt.org/answers#Freddie
Relationship with Freddie Mac
Recent reporting from Bloomberg News on the Gingrich Group’s consulting services for Freddie Mac confirms that Gingrich and his firm were not paid to lobby and that Gingrich never acted as an advocate to stop any legislation or regulation affecting Freddie Mac.
After leaving public office, Newt Gingrich founded a number of very successful small businesses. One of these small businesses, a consulting firm called The Gingrich Group, offered strategic advice on a wide variety of topics to a very wide range of clients. One of these clients was Freddie Mac. At no time did Gingrich lobby for Freddie Mac, or for any client, and neither did anyone in Gingrich’s firm. This prohibition against lobbying was made clear to all Gingrich Group clients. Nor did Gingrich ever advocate against pending legislation affecting Freddie Mac, as some articles have incorrectly alleged. In fact, recent reporting from Bloomberg News on the Gingrich Group’s consulting services for Freddie Mac confirms that Gingrich and his firm were not paid to lobby and that Gingrich never acted as an advocate to stop any legislation or regulation affecting Freddie Mac.
Furthermore, as the New York Times documents, Newt urged House Republicans to vote against the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. View Newt’s Freddie Mac consulting contract here.
Newt is in favor of efforts to increase home ownership in America but as a conservative believes they must be within a context of learning how to budget and save in a responsible way, the opposite of the lending practices that led to the financial crisis. You can watch a video from March 2008 of Newt warning about the danger of politicized decision making in the housing crisis here.
As part of Newt’s Jobs and Prosperity Plan, Newt advocates breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and moving their smaller successors off of government guarantees and into the free market.
He used his own credibility to promote and support Freddie/Fannie through interviews with the media that were posted on their website, all at a time he had to have known the destruction they were doing to our economy. He did it all for money. He's a practitioner of the oldest profession.
Thank you very much for all the posts about public vindications of Newt—expecially in the areas where Romney lied about him so viciously!!!
I have to admit that I did NOT know about many of those vindications. Somehow the enemydia didn’t cover those with anywhere near the slobbering glee they did the lies.