Gingrich Admits Violations Faced With Ethics Panel’s Verdict, Speaker Also Says He Misled House

After two years of vehemently denying wrongdoing, House Speaker Newt Gingrich agreed with a House ethics subcommittee Saturday that he had repeatedly violated House rules, then falsely denied he had done so.

By accepting the panel’s unanimous conclusion that he did not act “at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives,” Gingrich avoided an embarrassing fact-finding hearing before the full House Standards of Official Conduct Committee.

But that does not put an end to the matter. With the Ethics Committee now taking up the question of sanctions, the controversy will cast a shadow over the Georgia Republican’s effort to win re-election as speaker when the House begins its new session next month.

The 10-member bipartisan panel will deliberate behind closed doors, then present a recommendation to the House. Gingrich could be reprimanded, censured, fined or expelled, though expulsion is not considered likely.

Sources said Gingrich was bargaining for a reprimand that would let him remain the House’s top official.

In a 22-page statement of alleged violation, the House subcommittee asserted Saturday that Gingrich had funneled substantial sums of money through tax-exempt foundations to advance a partisan political purpose - and then submitted “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable” statements to the panel about it.

The panel indicated that at least $1,460,000 was involved in Gingrich’s various political enterprises.

Gingrich, in a one-sentence admission to the subcommittee, acknowledged he had committed the violations.

“I, Newt Gingrich, admit to the Statement of Alleged Violation dated December 21, 1996,” he said in response to the charges.

Republican leaders in the House rallied around their leader Saturday, asserting Gingrich’s sins were technical and relatively minor.

“The speaker accepted full responsibility for the mistakes that were made,” seven GOP leaders said in a joint statement. “He did not seek nor intend to mislead the committee.”

“There’s absolutely no question the speaker will be re-elected,” said Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But Democrats called on Gingrich to quit his leadership post, asserting that he may have violated the federal tax code.

House Minority Whip David Bonior, D-Mich., who has spearheaded the complaints against Gingrich, said he “should step down as speaker. … That would be the honorable thing to do, the right thing to do, and would spare the House from the situation ahead.”

In a statement issued Saturday afternoon, Gingrich confessed to being “overconfident” and “naive” in failing to seek sound legal advice as he created several tax-exempt foundations to finance a college course he taught.

“Because I did not,” Gingrich said, “I brought down on the people’s house a controversy which could weaken the faith people have in their government. … In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the (ethics) committee, but I did not intend to mislead the committee.”

The subcommittee cited numerous instances in which Gingrich falsely characterized the role of the foundations and of GOPAC, a Republican political action committee headed by Gingrich, in the financing and creation of the college course.

False statements by Gingrich were submitted on March 27, 1995, and Dec. 8, 1994. The speaker described his college course as “completely nonpartisan” and “wholly independent of GOPAC.”

The subcommittee disagreed, saying “the main message” of Gingrich’s “Renewing American Civilization” course at two Georgia colleges was “also the main message of GOPAC.”

The ethics subcommittee found that Gingrich’s course was intended to promote a conservative Republican agenda and an eventual GOP takeover of Congress.

GOPAC, a secretive committee fueled by anonymous wealthy donors, was the engine Gingrich used in 1986 to orchestrate his own rise from the House’s back benches, unite Republicans behind his own philosophy, and capture the speaker’s gavel.

Gingrich’s first project in 1990 was called the American Opportunity Workshop and it was paid for by GOPAC. It was aired on television and broadcast from a barbecue restaurant in his district in the midst of a tough re-election campaign.

After the first program aired, the program was transferred to the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation, a tax-exempt charity that was founded by then-GOPAC Chairman Howard “Bo” Callaway in Colorado to help inner-city children.

Callaway, a former Georgia congressman, relocated the charity into GOPAC’s offices, where it shared money, staff and resources while it produced two more television projects, the subcommittee report shows.

A third televised workshop was financed through the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, another tax-exempt organization.

Bonior accused Gingrich of “engaging in a pattern of tax fraud, lies and cover-up in paving his road to the second highest office in this land. He is not worthy of that office.”

He said the Lincoln foundation “was set up to help inner-city kids but was used for his own political purposes and organization.”

Celia Roady, a tax law expert hired by the ethics subcommittee, concluded that the workshops violated tax laws because they “were intended to confer more than insubstantial benefits on GOPAC and Republican entities and candidates.”

James P. Holden, a tax expert hired by Gingrich, argued that the activity did not violate tax law.

But both tax experts told the subcommittee that if Gingrich had sought their advice, they both would have told him not to do it.

Federal tax law prohibits the use of tax-exempt money to pay for partisan political activity.

It was not clear whether the Justice Department or Internal Revenue Service intends to look into the subcommittee’s allegations.

Earlier this week, Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., a Gingrich confidant, blamed the speaker’s lawyer, Jan Baran, for submitting the erroneous information to the subcommittee.

Baran said, however, that Gingrich had examined, approved and signed the submissions before handing them over to investigators.

In the subcommittee report, Gingrich acknowledged that he was responsible for the false information turned over to the committee.

Gingrich is only the second speaker to be subjected to an ethics committee investigation.

Former Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, resigned in 1989 rather than continue to fight charges initiated by Gingrich himself.