Countdown to Indictment

A MoJo Wire Timeline

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Well, we got what we wanted…sort of. Thanks in part to our Countdown to Indictment series, the House Ethics Committee has hired an outside counsel to investigate possible ethics violations by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Throughout 1995, Mother Jones and the MoJo Wire worked in tandem to expose Newt’s questionable activities, wherever we might have found them: within his Political Action Committee, GOPAC; his televised college course, “Renewing American Civilization; his Progress & Freedom Foundation, and many other business dealings. When the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) was preparing to release thousands of GOPAC related-documents in December, the MoJo Wire was one of their research sources.

What we’ve done on this page is compile the articles and letters that were part of our Countdown to Indictment series. Some of the pages feature full-sized, scanned and readable correspondence between Gingrich and his cohorts, so you can make judgments for yourself. Oh, and just because we’re taking a moment to look back and reminisce on the past year, that doesn’t mean we’re resting on our laurels. In the future, we’ll be placing more documents online, including those submitted by the FEC.

As always, your comments are needed and appreciated. If you have something to say, please tell us.

  • Countdown to Indictment One
    In our May/June 1995 issue, editor-in-chief Jeffrey Klein exposed not only Gingrich’s questionable activities, but also a foot-dragging Democratic opposition research staff, a cabal of Republican lieutenants preparing for a Newt indictment, and Rush Limbaugh’s evasive, bullying maneuvering in the midst of ethical questions.

  • Countdown to Indictment Two: Will Newt Fall?
    By our July/August 1995 issue, we were able to state that Gingrich “has systematically built his empire through dubious transactions.” Glenn Simpson presented a detailed investigation of GOPAC, Gingrich’s college course at Kennesaw State College, his Progress & Freedom Foundation, as well as his haste in accomodating bills sponsored by Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), who is also chairperson of the House Ethics Committee.

  • Coundown to Indictment Three: The Berman Letter
    $25,000 can go a long way, but can it help re-write policy? Glenn Simpson tracks down a letter and check sent to Gingrich by restaurant industry lobbyist Richard Berman, and discovers that soon after, Berman’s ideas were cropping up in Gingrich’s college course. You can see the full, scanned letter for yourself.

  • Countdown to Indictment Four: Newt Signs On
    Wherein Newt signs a copy of our magazine, and the press pleads ignorance of the whole GOPAC affair; take a peek at the number of GOPAC writeups in the press as they relate to the small-potatoes-in-comparison Whitewater affair.

  • Countdown to Indictment Five
    It’s the constant question in investigative journalism: who knew how much and when? In our November/December 1995 issue, we dug up correspondence between Gingrich, then-Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander and Alexander fundraiser Ted Welch. Gingrich brims with enthusiasm about GOPAC, but Alexander has a few reservations. The scanned documents included here tell the story.

  • Countdown to Indictment Six
    A MoJo Wire Exclusive: scanned copies of correspondence between Gingrich and Miller Nichols, a Kansas City-based real estate developer. Nichols gave GOPAC nearly $60,000 in funding; what did he want in return?

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That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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