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As you read this, the House Ethics Committee is moving toward
hiring an outside counsel to investigate charges against Speaker of
the House Newt Gingrich.

As Mother Jones has reported over the last year, Gingrich
constructed an illegal fundraising machine that enabled him to flout
federal campaign laws and misuse the tax-exempt status allowed
charities. The machine consisted of Gingrich’s political action
committee, GOPAC; his think tank, the Progress & Freedom
Foundation; and his televised college course, “Renewing American
Civilization.” These intertwined projects made up a stealth
organization that sponsored congressional candidates who would be
loyal to Gingrich. As far back as 1986, current Republican
presidential candidate Lamar Alexander understood Gingrich was
using GOPAC for this purpose (see documents below).

In addition to the ethics charges pending against Gingrich, the
Federal Election Commission is suing GOPAC for evading campaign
finance laws. Among the evidence the FEC has presented in U.S.
District Court is a

leaked
list of major GOPAC donors
annotated by
Mother Jones. The list includes many donors who appear to have
received political paybacks. (For details on yet another Gingrich
organization through which donors may be trying to buy influence, see
Reading between the lines.)

To show that the speaker of the House is not above the law, the
Ethics Committee must appoint an independent, outside counsel, and
must place no limits on the scope of the investigation. Specifically,
the counsel needs to get a complete accounting of all the money
Gingrich’s various enterprises took in and spent. Anything less will
open the Ethics Committee to charges of a cover-up.

Under Gingrich’s control, GOPAC refused to release its finances,
claiming it funded mostly local and state campaigns and therefore
didn’t need to comply with federal laws. But a leaked 1986
correspondence between Gingrich, then-Tennessee Gov. Lamar
Alexander, and Alexander fundraiser Ted Welch suggests otherwise:


From Newt Gingrich to Ted Welch:

“It’s our job to help our party to become competitive in the
additional districts it will take to allow us to capture a majority
in the U.S. House–some 50 in all. We work in conjunction with the
National Congressional Committee, and our program has the hearty
endorsement of President Reagan and other Republican leaders.”
–Newt Gingrich

From Lamar Alexander to Newt
Gingrich:

“This suggestion is that you are now busy electing
congressmen, instead of [state] legislators…. The last
thing we need is another operation promoting senators and
congressmen.” –Lamar Alexander

Click on the above letters to see the full-sized, scanned image
of each.

Want more on Newt? Check out Newt-O-Rama.
It contains links
to all our stuff on our favorite Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
For more on Lamar Alexander’s presidential bid, or for news
on any candidate, visit The
Race for the White House
.

See Hot!Media for more resources.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

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