O
ne would be forgiven for confusion over the issue of Speaker Gingrich’s ethics investigation given the conflicting claims made in the course of the current GOP nomination. Out of eighty-four complaints made against Gingrich the Select Committee on Ethics made a case out of three, two were not pursued because he had ceased the offending activity leaving one case against him for improperly claiming tax-exempt status for a partisan college course he taught known as “Renewing American Civilization:”
On December 13, 1996 the Committee issued a [Statement of Alleged Violations] charging Mr. Ginrich with three counts of violations of House Rules. Two counts concerned the failure to seek legal advice in regard to the 501(c)(3) projects, and one count concerned the providing the Committee with information which he knew or should have known was inaccurate.In the Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich House Committee on Ethics 17 Jan 97
After a year of investigation the bipartisan Committee found as follows:
It was the opinion of the Members of the subcommittee and the Special Counsel, that based on the facts as they are currently known, the appropriate sanction for the conduct described in the original Statement of Alleged Violations is a reprimand and the payment of $300,000 toward the cost of the preliminary investigation.In the Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich House Committee on Ethics 17 Jan 97
On first principles Gingrich is right that he didn’t pay a fine and it is arguable that the sanction was “narrow and technical,” as he has been suggesting since before the finding was released. But it is hardly an exoneration, as he has claimed, and the complaints which didn’t make it through the hurdles imposed by a majority Republican House at the time illustrate a pattern of deliberate flaunting of the laws of election finance, the rules of legislative probity and the regulations governing lobbying on a grandiose scale over almost the whole of Gingrich’s congressional career.
Image: J Scott Applewhite/AP