I put the following together for a Freeper, who was wanting to do some knocking on doors for Newt, and didn’t feel prepared enough to defend the ethics violations well enough... No one seems to have a really good handle on this, and it will surely be an issue in the General election... Just wanted to post it in case it would help others understand.
“Here is a little cheat sheet I put together for you... A bunch of links, a great Freeper thread, some FR posts, and some other stuff, and if you read it all (it’s not really that time consuming) you should have a great understanding about the case.
What finally put it ALL together for me was reading the one of the last links I posted here about Sarah Palin’s emails, and how what they did to her was so similar to Newt. And it seems this kind of effort that includes nuisance suits, one unfounded charge after another, mounting legal bills is what the left and dems do to true reformers, and there have only been two... newt and sarah.
The last Hillbuzz link has a little bullet point on the entire thing which is really concise and simple.
Romney did extreme extreme damage to Newt in florida, with that term “resigned in disgrace” and everybody has this issue at the top of their list as to what we really have to have an in-depth understanding of to bat away all the attacks that will surely come regarding it in the general...
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Newt House Charges
Since Newt Gingrich, there has only been one other government reformer that the establishment republicans and the DC democrats have feared – Sarah Palin.
Only two republicans in GOP history have been demeaned, denigrated, sought out to be destroyed by the establishment Republicans – Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.
Yes, it became completely obvious that a unified vendetta was mounted to harass and debilitate her ability to serve with FOI demands, harrasments, and law suits with bogus ethics claims.
The left did the EXACT same thing to Newt Gingrich in the ‘90s with the frivolous ethics charges levied against him. I’m sure they wanted him to resign too but they settled for a pound of flesh, having him settle for $300,000, which Bob Dole had to promise to loan him. The left probably thought that would be enough of a black mark on Newt’s record to stop Newt from ever running for president.
The Republicans at that time barely understood what was going on I think, and certainly didn’t realize the left was trying to create a tactic they could use over and over again to destroy us. And now, often because of our own conservatives claiming Newt’s “unelectable” because of those bogus charges, conservatives are willing to give the left exactly what it lied and cheated to get by not supporting Newt for president.
It’s a shame when even our own conservative brethren fail to understand the evil the left is engaged in to destroy anyone they perceive as truly conservative. And of course our own liberal RINOs are all too happy to take advantage of the groundwork the leftists laid. I’m sure Romney would have said Palin “resigned in disgrace” too if she had stayed in the race.
Saying Alaska Libs ever loved her is a gross misstatement. The animal rights people hated her for the wolf hunting business. The good ol boy club hated her for messing with their cronyism, and that jails from the left, even when the GOP is doing it. There’s never been any serious doubt she’s on the wrong side of social issues, if you’re a lefty.
Abortion is absolutely central to the left’s agenda. It grants ultimate power over life and death to the state. Her fiscal policies, right or wrong, were designed to promote private sector growth through free enterprise, not your typical lefty posture.
This is exactly what they did to Newt... all but one of 80-some ethics violations dropped and a clean bill of health from the IRS... afterwards. No legal fine, he paid for the cost of the investigation.
There is something about Newt and Sarah, they didn’t defend themselves overtly regarding both of these stampedes... maybe it is their concept of honor or something...
Newt was palinized before there was a palin, it is what dems do to true reformers... it is very sad.
http://apapromotions.com/commonsense/2012/02/02/setting-the-record-straight-senator-graham-speaks-about-newt-gingrich-his-term-as-speaker/
In the aftermath of being hammered in South Carolina, Mitt Romney realized that ending his campaign howitzer ads against Newt Gingrich after New Hampshire had been a mistake. So according to the New York Times, he decided during a staff meeting to “destroy” Gingrich. The decision was taken to go after Gingrich for the alleged ethics violations that dogged the speaker for to years, but were later dropped.
The case against Newt Gingrich (Democrat recriminations for Gingrich’s ousting of Speaker Jim Wright for legitimate ethics violations) began in the unlikeliest of ways, was enormously complex and was an acidic vendetta launched by Newt’s then political opponents.
The charges are rooted in part in classes Gingrich taught at two Georgia colleges from 1993 to 1995. The course he created, designed and presented was Renewing American Civilization, and the funding for it came from the non-profit Progress and Freedom Foundation.
Oddly enough, the charges originated with Ben Jones, the man who played Cooter in the hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. A recovering alcoholic, Jones decided to get into politics and ran as a Democrat from Georgia. He served two terms, but when the boundaries of his district were redrawn, he found his seat to be extinct. In an attempt to stay within the hallowed halls of Congress, he challenged Gingrich in 1994, and took a shellacking.
Deeply angered and embittered by the loss, he decided on retribution. He charged that the course Gingrich taught was, in fact, not educational as Newt maintained, but rather a way for the speaker to spread his conservative ideology with the backing of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. As such, it constituted obscure ethics and IRS violations. Jones apparently tried several times to bring this “ethics breach” to the attention of the House Ethics Committee, but it wasn’t until he got help from the highly partisan Democrat Rep. David Bonoir that intense political pressure forced the GOP committee members to agree to conduct an inquiry.
James Cole, a Washington attorney, marinated Jones’ contention and provided the legal basis for the probe. While never denying Newt’s argument that the course was indeed educational, Cole nonetheless accused Gingrich of spewing his own political beliefs and violating ethics by having that exercise subsidized by the tax-exempt organization.
In all, 84 ethics violations were heaped against the speaker. Listing them all here is beyond the scope of this article, but it was definitely a “kitchen sink” attempt to bring him down.
In addition to the course, he was accused of violating Rule 45 by using a paid consultant, Jeffrey Eisenach, who helped form GOP strategy for Newt in 1990-91. But Gingrich had stopped using Eisenbach after becoming speaker, so that charge was later dropped.
By 1997, the media attention began to be a real issue not just for Newt, but the Republican Party. Fears began to manifest that GOP would lose House seats unless the investigation was ended and quickly.
Newt dutifully fell on his sword by admitting the ridiculous contention that he had failed to get the proper tax advice before teaching the course. In fact, he had spoken with not one but two attorneys regarding the tax issues.
“With deep sadness, I agree. I did not seek legal counsel when I should have in order to ensure clear compliance with all applicable laws, and that was wrong,” Gingrich said. “Because I did not, I brought down on the people’s house a controversy which could weaken the faith people have in their government.”
He also confessed that he had provided the committee with “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable information.” The alleged false information was his contention that the course was not political. He swallowed hard and admitted that it was political. It was later proven not to be.
As has been the case for far too long, the mainstream media had a field day. In fact, Tom Brokaw’s erroneous announcement that Gingrich had been convicted of the ethics violations “by an overwhelming vote” became fodder for Romney’s attack ads.
Brokaw, while not acknowledging that the report was wrong, demanded that Romney stop using his image without his permission. Romney ignored him, and the ad aired ad nauseum in Florida, even though Gingrich was completely exonerated of 83 of the 84 charges filed against him on October 10, 1998. That mattered not to Romney, who has shown himself to be decidedly and deliberately duplicitous throughout the campaign.
Obviously with a news anchor of that repute, people believed the lie that ended with, “I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this ad.” It cost Newt Florida.
Many have questioned why Gingrich admitted wrongdoing when he had not, in fact, done anything wrong. His desire to end the impact the probe was having on the GOP is the reason.
In essence Newt copped a plea. He was guilty of neither the charges he admitted nor any other charges save one, a letter written by his attorney that provided incorrect information. Trusting that because he was paying a bloody fortune for legal advice, Newt believed a letter written by the law firm had to be correct, and he never read it. Instead, he submitted it to the committee. In that case, “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable information” was what would later be the only violation to survive of all 84 charges against him.
While Brokaw, Romney and armies of Newt’s enemies claim he was fined $300,000 for that one violation, that is not the case. Once again, anxious to end this litany of partisan attacks, he paid that amount to cover the cost of the investigation of his own accord. It was not a fine, penalty or any other payment for any ethics breaches.
According to the Washington Post “Gingrich is paying $300,000 for the costs of an ethics committee investigation after admitting last year he made inaccurate statements during a lengthy probe into Democratic allegations that he misused tax-exempt donations. Gingrich denied the charges but submitted to a reprimand by the House.” It was not and is not a fine or financial penalty of any kind.
As Newt was taking blame for violations not real, the IRS, the Federal Elections Commissions and a federal judge were evaluating the various allegations (such as how Newt had allegedly misused funds from GOPAC, a GOP group, for his campaign). All three investigations were digging hard to find anything that would incriminate him. A number of investigators examined everything from the course material to what Gingrich had provided in his lectures. But as hard as investigators tried, the IRS team, the FEC and the federal judge completely cleared Newt of any wrongdoing, except for the erroneous letter he submitted.
On Saturday, October 10, 1998, the Ethics Committee dropped the last three remaining charges, and Newt was exonerated.
But Romney isn’t willing to accept the truth. While on the stump in Florida he told the gathered crowds that Gingrich resigned in disgrace as a result of the violations. Oh what a tangled web we weave…. In fact Newt stayed on as speaker for two years after the probe. When the GOP failed to win the number of seats Newt had promised, he felt, as did others, that he had lost the confidence of his House GOP caucus and he resigned. His departure was not motivated by the ethics probe in any way.
So if you see this ad in an upcoming primary or caucus, it’s absolutely false, and you need to ask yourself, does Washington need another liar who will stop at nothing to destroy his opponents and force what he wants on the people? I think not. This ad, together with other ads Romney is running, is absolutely false. Romney knows it and should be ashamed of using it, but he’s simply bent on ruining the others in the race, including Rick Santorum.
But that may have come back to bite him on February 7, 2012, when Rick swept three states, beating Romney in Missouri with 55% of the vote to Romney’s 25%. That may well have been due in part to protest votes in Santorum’s favor against Romney’s dishonest and over-the-top tactics. If that’s true, it’s about time that somebody beat Romney and in a big way. Hopefully now he’ll get the message and knock off his vicious attempts at ignominy and run on his ideas, but then that is a problem. He clearly can’t win unless he uses these ads to annihilate the competition.
Newt most certainly can. In fact, he’s by far the best able to clean Obama’s clock during debates, and is the only candidate amply experienced to engineer the massive changes that must be made in Washington.
http://conservativenexus.com/article/what-hurt-newt-in-florida-lies-about-ethics-violations-for-which-he-was-exonerated/
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/lindsey-graham-gingrich-coup_n_1249641.html
What I’m saying about Newt, why did we lose confidence in him? Because he was changing the game plan. The last group to talk to him sort of won the day. But I can’t imagine his job. The first time Republicans had the congress in 40 years, trying to lead a revolution, taking people like me that came here to burn the place down and govern the country and deal with Bill Clinton — a good politician. Looking back, I appreciate how hard his job was better than I did in 1997. And I’m here to say, as the guy who was in the coup, that looking back we were too hard on him and if he got to be the nominee I think he could win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6Ovf2NBk4
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/gingrich-coup-conspirator-gingrich-has-mellowed-and-is-electable/
“Being a backbencher throwing bombs because you’re not pure is a lot of fun, but governing the country is a lot harder,” he said.
The South Carolina Republican said he believes the country now needs someone like Gingrich to “embrace big ideas and take political risks”
“The one thing about Newt that is compelling is that I don’t think he looks at politics in terms of the next election cycle. He looks at politics as a generational issue,” said Graham.
Sarah Palin on Alaska job: I can’t take it anymore, reveals new public emails
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2850815/posts
Newt Gingrich Cleared! Now How About a Refund?
link, http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/newt.html
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Ethics Committee Drops Last of 84 Charges Against Gingrich, link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/stories/101198.htm
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http://hillbuzz.org/byron-yorks-breakdown-of-what-really-happened-in-gingrich-ethics-case-31106";
