I have to admit, I didn’t remember.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/stories/101198.htm
In the era of “Get Newt”, the Democrats filed 84 charges against Newt, as well as chages from the FEC – alleging that Newt’s PAC did things improper. All the charges were dropped, and the FEC case thrown out by the Federal Judge.
The Ethics Committee still insisted that Newt did something wrong by giving answers to their questions which caused the investigation (which resulted in no charges that stuck) to take longer than it had to in order to find him innocent on all charges.
So he agreed to pay $300,000 to make the thing go away – repaying the House for their legal expenses in their futile attempt to “get Newt”.
That’s it.
And if you can even explain what the problem was with the original charges, you’re a better nitpicker than me.
Thats interesting cause some staffer that said he was a election strategist in the late 90’s, called into the Tom Sullivan on Fox radio yesterday afternoon. (oh WYXC is back on the air) He said there was a sealed document there in the vault in the capital and Nancy pelosi will get it out if Newt is the nominee, and it will crush the Republican party back to the dark ages.
Supposedly he was allowed to leave the speaker and they agreed to not air the details of Newts sex scandal. He was quite adamant. I thought he was going to have a breakdown on the air or lay an egg.
Did anyone else hear this?
Parrott
None of the charges against Newt in the House Ethics committee involved sexual conduct. 74 of the charges were immediately thrown out as having no merit. The strongest charge was that Newt used money from a non-profit organization to fund teaching a class that Democrats believed had a “partisan bias” and thereby used tax-exempt money for partistan political purposes. The IRS cleared him of that charge.
More details:
http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/newt.html
I would urge you to not get your “facts” from callers to talk shows being paid by political campaign. I have a secret file on Nancy Pelosie locked away in my vault in Switzerland showing her doing something she doesn’t want the world to know about, and you can’t prove that’s not true – so it must be a fact.
Thanks Art…I had forgotten as well. All I could remember was that it was much ado about nothing!
That Pelosi threat came up again tonight (Tuesday January 24). Her behavior is bizzare to me (not to mention immature, vulgar and (if possible) beneath her. I think Rush would speculate that they WANT Romney rather than NG – I don’t know. Just so damned odd.
yep, I didn’t make it up, thanks Hpaws.
I guess I should consult the ‘Web_Bots’ .
parrott
Everyone seems to have forgotten that the trumped up ethics charges against Newt after he became speaker was mostly Democratic Party retaliation for Gingrich helping to take out House Speaker Jim Wright in 1989. Enough of the ethics complaints against Speaker Wright were substantiated (by a Democratically controlled house) such that he voluntarily resigned.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/7693-1
I found Rush about a year before Clinton was elected. When Newt was speaker (or possibly just after) there was a Saturday radio show of Newt teaching that class. It was VERY, VERY GOOD. I believe that was one of the ethics charge but it was really educational like taking a Poli Sci class vs politics. I believe that charge was cleared but it appeared that Newt was skirting the boundary of legal.
Yes, Newt played hardball but that is legal. What was annoying is his habit of seizing defeat from the jaws of victory like in the Gov’t shutdown because he didn’t think thru his strategy. He is excellent is passing the front runner, but once he is the front runner he tends to shoot himself in the foot.
When the Obama folks (whoever they are) put their plan together, they hit the ground running even before they were in the White House – coordinating the writing of legislation, lining up their priorities, getting buy-in so the votes would be there.
My worry is that no matter if it is Newt or Rommey or someone else – it’s critical that the time between now and January that people within the Republican party have a plan – to do what is necessary to get things through the Senate without 60 votes, pass an actual budget and appropriations bills on time, and have a strategy to achieve the policy goals – knowing that the Courts are never going to be their ally.
Back in 1994, Newt led the Contract With America, which was good as far as it went. There needs to be a “hit list” of things that need to be undone before they the cement is fully set in place and things can’t be undone.
I’m not optimistic. I think it more likely they’ll go back to squadering their limited time and resources on things like steroids in sports, abortion, putting Bible reading back in public schools, etc…
Ya think?
I am so tired of red herring, I’m thinking of becoming vegan.
If the GOP doesn’t get its act together THIS time, I’m afraid we are going to be out of luck…