Donation To Gingrich Attacked

Democrats charged in a new complaint Thursday that House Speaker Newt Gingrich improperly accepted up to $200,000 in broadcast time for his college history course from a television cable company with “substantial interests” before Congress.

Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., and two other lawmakers filed the complaint with the House Ethics Committee, which has been meeting in strict privacy this week to review earlier complaints against the Georgia Republican.

But some Democrats charged that Republicans are using bully tactics and their majority power in the House to prevent an ethics investigation.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, a freshman who was an ethics specialist for the Texas Supreme Court, told Newsday that House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., a Gingrich loyalist, threatened him on the House floor Thursday.

Doggett, in his first criticism of Gingrich, said he was concerned because the speaker has suggested that the ethics committee require those bringing ethics charges to pay all legal fees if they are dismissed.

As Doggett spoke against such intimidation, he said, Solomon approached him, apparently upset, and, “He said, in essence, `Buddy, you’ve gone too far. You’re going to find out.”’