Posted on 12/05/2011 9:39:52 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Pelosi plans to reveal information about Gingrich 'when the time is right' By Alicia M. Cohn - 12/05/11 11:44 AM ET
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is holding back some information on Republican Newt Gingrich that could detract from his presidential campaign, according to a report published Monday.
“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House, worked with Pelosi in Congress from 1987 to 1999. Pelosi also served on the ethics committee that investigated Gingrich for tax cheating and campaign finance violations in the late ’90s.
Gingrich filmed an ad with then-House Speaker Pelosi in 2008 to urge action on climate change, which haunted him early in his presidential bid this year. Gingrich called the ad “probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years” last month.
Republicans in Congress have been slow to rally around Gingrich’s rise to front-runner status in the polls, with former GOP colleague Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) stating publicly over the weekend he is not “inclined to be a supporter” of Gingrich due to that past experience.
But Democrats such as the soon-to-retire Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have suggested Gingrich as the GOP nominee would benefit the Democratic Party.
"He would be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater," Frank said last week. Goldwater is credited with reviving Republican conservatism in the ’60s.
Pelosi told Talking Points Memo that Frank “spoke for a lot” of Democrats. “I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said ‘I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party,’ ” she said.
And Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who also served in Congress with Gingrich and now holds a position of power as assistant minority leader in the House, charged Gingrich on Monday with lacking the temperament to be president.
“He tends to fly off the handle. He will say almost anything in order to get a charge. I’m sure that he’s not serious when he says a lot of these things,” Clyburn said on MSNBC.
She better watch out...he just may have some inside information of his own.
“The Dems are getting nervous. They thought they had taken Newt down over 10 years ago. Apparently not.”
I have the same reservations about Newt as everyone else. One thing I am hopeful about though, is that he may have an axe to grind if and when he comes back. I do not read him as the total Stockholm Syndrome poster boy that McCain was and is.
She has outtakes from the couch commercial to prove it!
“Four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year.” A year? Really? She was flatbacking the whole time.
And why the communists Democratic Party minority leader running scared? And why do the voter polls show Gingrich on top? Voters select the nominee not a few FR's
And Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who also served in Congress with Gingrich and now holds a position of power as assistant minority leader in the House, charged Gingrich on Monday with lacking the temperament to be president.
“He tends to fly off the handle. He will say almost anything in order to get a charge. I’m sure that he’s not serious when he says a lot of these things,” Clyburn said on MSNBC.
All this noise makes me wonder. The democrats often praise those they WANT to run against, and act gleeful of those they do NOT want to run against. To that end, they've had nothing but praise for Huntsman and Romney, but a lot of negativety for Cain and Palin. Makes me wonder....
The only reason Newt is “back” is because the rest of the GOP field sucks so much.
Exactly.Romney compiled with the tea party getting ticked off and running a third party candidate along with NO VOTER ID LAW states ensures Obama. But hey people... keep calling Perry a RINO all the way to POTUS Obama.
I well remember when Gingrich was the target of those ethics complaints. Then House Minority leader David Bonior kept filing one charge after another in a disgusting display of partisan harassment. The first 83 of those complaints went nowhere.
The last one had to do with alleged IRS violations relating to the class he ran (which was televised as a series), on the grounds that it was a "partisan" event. (It wasn't). I recall Gingrich agreed to settle that one by paying $300k, but even the IRS decided there was no violation of the 503(c) rules, and declined to take any action against Gingrich.
I look forward to Gingrich swatting Pelosi like a fly if she dares to bring this stuff up.
And I have to add that when I hear Freepers using these "ethics violations" to argue against Gingrich, it makes me want to discount virtually anything else they have to say.
Time for everyone to stop taking directions from the DNC, to rally around our guy, and to fight back.
She doesn’t have jack.
They (the Democrats in the House in the mid 1990’s) filed a raft of ethics charges against him while he was Speaker. All but one fell by the wayside, i.e., were not found to be substantive. The remaining issue was regarding the use of tax deductible contributions to a non-profit organization which Newt created, for the purpose of producing a series of educational programs. For some reason, instead of fighting it, Newt settled that charge with the payment of a fine or forfeiture, which made it look like an admission of guilt. Meanwhile the IRS was administratively (at a glacial pace) deciding the propriety of the use of the tax-deductible contributions for that purpose. If I recall correctly they decided in Newt’s favor, sometime in 2001 or 2002, long after he had stepped down. I don’t think he ever received a refund of the forfeiture.
I have no fear that Gingrich can summon the facts and defeat this kind of threatened assault from Pelosi, and while doing it, I bet he blows a hole in Nancy Pelosi more effectively than any other Republican could.
If she opens this can of worms, she is dumber than I thought. From what I read, the ethics charges against Newt were basically for using a tax exempt entity for political purposes. There is no way she will EVER bring this up. The entire DNC is doing the same thing ON STEROIDS! ACORN, Organizing for America, Get Out the Vote, NPR, Planned Parenthood ... I could go on and on. This is a chance they will not take...unless they are just that stupid. You freepers are very knowledgable, am I missing something?
I’m glad to say that I’ve never had such a nightmare - there’s not enough sandpaper on the planet to scrub away that image.
I’m not a Newt supporter, in fact, he is the one candidate that I’ve long said I couldn’t support (due to his marriage infidelities...I think that shows his true principles and will account for the way he “plays” politics as well.) But after 4 years of Obama, I’ll be voting for anyone who’s not Obama.
That being said, the info about Barney Frank in the article...”But Democrats such as the soon-to-retire Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have suggested Gingrich as the GOP nominee would benefit the Democratic Party.
‘He would be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater,’ Frank said last week. Goldwater is credited with reviving Republican conservatism in the ’60s”...makes me think that Newt is more of a threat to the Dems than I believed he would be.
If Frank says we’d love Newt as the candidate, we should interpret that as we don’t want Newt as a candidate...at least that’s the sense I’m feeling. Same with Nancy Pelosi trying to derail him by some “new” allegation. She wants the Republicans to be afraid to nominate him, obviously.
Newt was vindicated. Nancy never has been.
I would never believe a word a RAT says.
She might have the goods ... but I’d love for her to be investigated.
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