Newt } Talks About Fines and Other Shingo For Unmarried Couples
“I’m not trying to portray myself as an outsider, but look at the reaction of the establishment from both parties,” Gingrich said in an editorial board meeting with The Des Moines Register. “They think I’m an outsider because I am. I’m a person who has worked on issues for a very long time. I know the system very well, but I’ve always approached the system as somebody who wants to change it.”
Gingrich, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate, is the only U.S. House speaker to have been reprimanded for ethical wrongdoing. Of 84 charges against him, all but one was dropped. At the time, he acknowledged he brought discredit to the House by failing to ensure that financing for a college course and book did not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information. A subsequent Internal Revenue Service investigation determined there were no tax law violations.
On Thursday, Gingrich disputed the term “fined,” noting that the $300,000 he paid was to cover the costs for investigating the misinformation given to the committee. He said the misinformation came from a junior attorney working with a firm he had hired. He said he and his staff reviewed the information, but not thoroughly.
“I technically wasn’t fined. It aided the cost of the investigation,” Gingrich said in response to questions about whether he regrets paying the penalty.
Gingrich reiterated that he believes the investigation was partisan, noting that U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi was on the committee. Statements earlier this month by Gingrich that the investigation was partisan were reviewed by both Fact-Check.org and PolitiFact, which found the claim false. Filing of the complaints was partisan, and the investigation came at a highly partisan time, FactCheck.org found. But the investigation was not partisan, both organizations concluded. The eight-member House Ethics Committee was evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans, and three of the four Republicans agreed with the Democrats to reprimand Gingrich.
“Look, we were at a point where the Democrats had made it clear that either they get a pound of flesh or this issue would go on for the entire term of my speakership,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich has advocated for a national constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. A member of the editorial board stated that many residents of the South at the time of the 1960s civil rights movement objected to interracial marriage, and asked Gingrich to comment about possible parallels between the civil rights movement and today’s efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.
Gingrich said it is offensive to compare the two movements and that there is an enormous difference between “an inescapable fact of race” and same-sex marriage. Upon further questioning, he said he believes people are gay out of a combination of genetics and environment.
“People have many choices within genetic patterns,” Gingrich said.
— The Associated Press
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