Republican presidential candidate responded to a recent threat by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) on Friday to disclose information that only she knows about the former House speaker.
Ms. Pelosi’s comments came Friday in an interview with Talking Points Memo, where she talked about investigating Mr. Gingrich during his term as House Speaker in the 1990s.
“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Ms. Pelosi said in the interview.
“I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff,” the House minority leader added.
Ms. Pelosi was part of a House ethics panel that investigated Mr. Gingrich in 1997 for tax law and campaign finance violations. The then GOP controlled House voted in favor of fining Mr. Gingrich $300,000, though he was found guilty of breaking any laws.
The former House speaker seemed happy with Ms. Pelosi’s statement, appearing at a news conference in New York City Monday he responded, saying the comment served as a “Christmas gift” for Republicans.
“I would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift,” Mr. Gingrich said to reporters Monday.
“That’s a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it,” Mr. Gingrich added.
Ironically Mr. Gingrich has recently received criticism for appearing in a 2008 ad with Ms. Pelosi who was the House speaker at the time. The ad promoted awareness for global warming, Mr. Gingrich has recently said it “was probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years.”
Mr. Gingrich downplayed the impact that the release of information by Ms. Pelosi would have on chances at becoming president in 2012.
“Eighty-three charges were repudiated, the one mistake we made was a letter written by a lawyer that i didn’t read carefully,” Mr. Gingrich said.
“Every other charge was found false in the long run,” the former House speaker added.
