Newt Won’t Deny He’d Quit To Avoid Ethics Probe Columnist Claims Gingrich Said He Would Resign If Democrats Get Control Of House

House Speaker Newt Gingrich refused Saturday to deny a report that he would resign his House seat if Democrats gain control of the House to avoid an ethics investigation.

“I’m not going to comment,” said Gingrich Saturday in response to questions from reporters after an appearance at a Cobb County Republican breakfast. “It’s irrelevant to the current situation.

“I’m not very worried about a hypothetical situation that is not going to occur,” he said when pressed and pointedly did not deny the accuracy of the report.

His refusal to deny the report was striking in light of the fact that he faces a challenge from a Democratic opponent this year.

John Ellis, a Republican political consultant who writes a column for the Boston Globe, reported Saturday that Gingrich had told financial supporters during a private meeting Thursday that he would resign from the House if Republicans lose their majority on Nov. 5.

Democrats who need 19 seats to regain control of the House have become increasingly optimistic about their prospects, partly because of President Clinton’s double-digit lead over Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

Gingrich reportedly said that he would give up his congressional seat after 18 years in the House, the last two as the first Republican Speaker in 40 years, to avoid an investigation by a House ethics committee controlled by Democrats.

Democrats have filed repeated complaints against Gingrich, which could have been dismissed as partisan revenge for the way Gingrich used the ethics committee to launch the investigation that drove Democratic Speaker Jim Wright out of office.

But the bipartisan committee expanded the two-year investigation by voting unanimously to investigate Gingrich.

An interim report by a subcommittee raised the possibility that Gingrich may not have told the truth in his testimony to the committee about two college courses he taught between 1993 and 1995.

The financing of the courses and their relationship with GOPAC, a Republican political action committee established by Gingrich, is central to the ethics investigation.

Tax-exempt donations for the course cannot by law be used to further political candidates or causes. Gingrich has said the courses were educational and not political.