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House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker By John E. Yang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 22 1997; Page A01
The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.
The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday's vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.
I was watching way too much cspan at the time, and I remember the case well. A tempest in a teapot. At issue was the technically illegal mixing of 501c3 activites with PAC activities. The former are not supposed to lobby nor engage in campaigning.
But I remember also vividly at the time that US House member and ethics committee member Nancy Johnson admitted that such mixing was widespread. She talked about seeing offices where the office space for a 5013C and a PAC was the same space, using the same phones, etc. But separate on paper. She said the Gingrich case pointed to a need to address the larger mess. But was that ever done? Not as far as I know.
Remember the uproar regarding Newt's "ethics violations?" People can refresh their memory by reading an article I wrote in 1997 about these charges. In brief, David Bonior brought 75 ethics charges against Newt, 74 which were found to have no merit whatsoever (and people say that Ken Starr is on a "witch hunt?"). The last charge, whether Newt funded his college class "Renewing American Civilization" properly, was too complicated a tax issue for the committee to investigate on its own, so they brought in an outside tax expert to investigate. Two charges arose out of this investigation.
The first 'charge' from the ethics committee is that he "may have" violated tax law by using tax-deductible contributions from nonprofit organizations to teach an allegedly partisan college course.
The second 'charge' from the committee is that, in the course of the investigation, Newt provided false information to the committee. And what was this "false information?" Newt testified that the above contributions were in fact made by those organizations to "Renewing American Civilization." He filed papers that stated the very same thing. This is never a fact that anyone was trying to hide. But one paper filed with the committee stated that those groups did not make the contributions. For this, there was an uproar about Newt's ethics, and he was fined.
Basically, Newt was fined $300,000 because he didn't read his lawyers' documents carefully. I could really get into the hypocrisy of this in light of the fact that people want to excuse Bill Clinton for lying under oath, (maybe if the course Newt had taught was about SEX the Democrats would feel differently) but that's not the point of this article.
Well, after a 3.5 year probe, after Newt paid the $300,000 fine, the IRS announced on February 3, 1999, that it found NO IMPROPRIETIES IN THE TAX FILINGS of Gingrich and the sponsoring Progress and Freedom Foundation. The IRS said the principles taught in the course were not of use only in political campaigns. "The ... course taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation, or a politician."
Well isn't that nice - and isn't that what Newt had been saying all along?
In other words, the ethics charges David Bonior filed against Newt were ALL bogus. Every single one of them. In the end, what was Newt's "ethics problems"? One of the papers filed by his lawyers had an error and Newt didn't catch it. That little oversight cost $300,000.
David Bonior stated a couple of years ago that "Mr. Gingrich engaged in a pattern of tax fraud." Well, it now looks as if Bonior was way out in left field on all 75 of his accusations. How about a censure of David Bonior for filing 75 unfounded charges against him, so Newt can at least get his good name back? But how could I forget? We are in the age of forgiveness, where we just "forgive and forget" perjury and obstruction of justice, so I guess that means forgiving David Bonior too. Too bad people weren't as "forgiving" when it was Newt Gingrich in the hot seat.
Bringing up ancient history is not that important to me: I am more interested in knowing what his political platforms and policies are ... and that is what I find disagreeable and alarming, not the controversies of the past.
Bringing up ancient history is not that important to me: I am more interested in knowing what his political platforms and policies are ... and that is what I find disagreeable and alarming, not the controversies of the past.
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.
I do not recall him ever being cleared and a quick google search did not net any reliable results either. However, in passing tonight on cbs news thi issue was brought up to newt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Little-Acorn
Anyone remember this about 'ole Newt?
You mean this?
Newt Gingrich Cleared - Now How About a Refund? (http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/newt.html - broken link)
Remember the uproar regarding Newt's "ethics violations?" People can refresh their memory by reading an article I wrote in 1997 about these charges. In brief, David Bonior brought 75 ethics charges against Newt, 74 which were found to have no merit whatsoever (and people say that Ken Starr is on a "witch hunt?"). The last charge, whether Newt funded his college class "Renewing American Civilization" properly, was too complicated a tax issue for the committee to investigate on its own, so they brought in an outside tax expert to investigate. Two charges arose out of this investigation.
The first 'charge' from the ethics committee is that he "may have" violated tax law by using tax-deductible contributions from nonprofit organizations to teach an allegedly partisan college course.
The second 'charge' from the committee is that, in the course of the investigation, Newt provided false information to the committee. And what was this "false information?" Newt testified that the above contributions were in fact made by those organizations to "Renewing American Civilization." He filed papers that stated the very same thing. This is never a fact that anyone was trying to hide. But one paper filed with the committee stated that those groups did not make the contributions. For this, there was an uproar about Newt's ethics, and he was fined.
Basically, Newt was fined $300,000 because he didn't read his lawyers' documents carefully. I could really get into the hypocrisy of this in light of the fact that people want to excuse Bill Clinton for lying under oath, (maybe if the course Newt had taught was about SEX the Democrats would feel differently) but that's not the point of this article.
Well, after a 3.5 year probe, after Newt paid the $300,000 fine, the IRS announced on February 3, 1999, that it found NO IMPROPRIETIES IN THE TAX FILINGS of Gingrich and the sponsoring Progress and Freedom Foundation. The IRS said the principles taught in the course were not of use only in political campaigns. "The ... course taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation, or a politician."
Well isn't that nice - and isn't that what Newt had been saying all along?
In other words, the ethics charges David Bonior filed against Newt were ALL bogus. Every single one of them. In the end, what was Newt's "ethics problems"? One of the papers filed by his lawyers had an error and Newt didn't catch it. That little oversight cost $300,000.
David Bonior stated a couple of years ago that "Mr. Gingrich engaged in a pattern of tax fraud." Well, it now looks as if Bonior was way out in left field on all 75 of his accusations. How about a censure of David Bonior for filing 75 unfounded charges against him, so Newt can at least get his good name back? But how could I forget? We are in the age of forgiveness, where we just "forgive and forget" perjury and obstruction of justice, so I guess that means forgiving David Bonior too. Too bad people weren't as "forgiving" when it was Newt Gingrich in the hot seat.
Yeah I remember that. He had 70+ charges brought on him by mostly Democrats, almost all weer dismissed and then the one that did get a fine was proved later to not be anything illegal.
Did he get back his 300k with interest?
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