Newt Gingrich Says Mitt Romney’s Ethics Violations Attacks Are ‘Totally Phony’
EmailIn some of his harshest rhetoric yet, Newt Gingrich lambasted Mitt Romney on Sunday for “manically” repeating “totally phony” attacks against Gingrich’s House ethics investigation.
Romney recently released an ad showing an archival clip of NBC anchor Tom Brokaw delivering the news in 1997 that Gingrich’s peers in the House “found him guilty of ethics violations,” charged him a “very large financial penalty” and “raised serious questions” about his future as House speaker.
“It’s fundamentally false,” Gingrich told me Sunday on “This Week.” “It’s typical of [Romney's] whole campaign. He knows… that this is a purely phony charge.”
Gingrich noted that he was “attacked” with 84 allegations of ethics violations by House Democrats after he helped usher in the first Republican take-over of the lower chamber in 40 years.
“Every single one of the substantive charges was ultimately thrown out, period,” Gingrich said, referencing a 1999 IRS report that found Gingrich had not violated any tax laws.
The Romney ad is part of a more than $8 million ad war that Romney and his supporting Super PAC have launched against Gingrich in Florida.
The former House speaker said a deluge of negative ads such as this is something the eventual GOP nominee is going to have to be able to weather in the general election.
“Look, whoever gets to be the Republican nominee is going to be attacked by Obama’s billion-dollar attack campaign,” Gingrich said. “The question is, can you withstand that attack better as a solid conservative or as a moderate?”
Reiterating a line from his own attack ads, Gingrich said Romney, a “Massachusetts moderate,” is “very unlikely” to hold up against such an attack in the general election and just as likely to crumble under his “liberal record” in the primary.
“I can assure you that all the way to the convention we’re going to have a fight over whether or not somebody can be fundamentally dishonest and try to hide their liberal record in Massachusetts and try to hide their past, in terms of voting for Democrats, and get to be the nominee,” Gingrich said.
Best Commencement Speeches of 2012 
Joe Biden Recalls Death of Wife, Daughter
Have to agree with that.
Voters don’t really investigate the truth……..they just listen to the lies, and accept them.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | January 29, 2012, 4:28 pm 4:28 pm
Newt and his friends want to blame everyone else for his problems. He claims he didn’t do well in last Monday’s debate because the auidence wasn’t allowed to cheer. His poor performance in the debate on Thursday was because Romney packed the audience with his supporters. Might his fall in the polls be due to the lies that come out of his mouth? Newt’s ex wife says he was not deposed in their divorce proceedings. This after he was quoted in an interview in FL saying he didn’t lie about his affairs in his deposition. Newt told everyone that he offered friends to be interviewed by ABC to refute his wife’s story. By his own admission he didn’t tell the truth about this. He has also told Americans a lot of misinformation about capitalism and the free market. He was forced to remove two ads that contained untruths about his opponent Mitt Romney. His stand on illegal immigration? Did he tell us his older daught is running his FL campagin prior to trotting her out to defend him againist his ex wife’s allegations? What about accusing Paul Ryan of right wing social engineering? The list could go on and on. We already have somone in the white house who refuses to take resonsibility and blames somone else for our country’s problems. Do we really want to elect somone who will be more of the same? Before Newt accuses others of being dishonest he should clean up his own act.
Posted by: tc297 | January 29, 2012, 4:36 pm 4:36 pm
If Newt can’t even admit he did wrong. How is he suppose to learn and inspire trust.
He seems more like Richard Nixon albeit he admitted to doing wrong. So I guess he is more like Bill Clinton.
Sorry Newt the people do not want business as usual.
America needs a leader with a proven record of success. Accept that and your integrity issues from the past and get behind Mitt so we can fire Obama and start heading down the right track.
Posted by: scdaddyo | January 29, 2012, 9:10 pm 9:10 pm
start heading down the right track.
Posted by: scdaddyo | January 29, 2012, 9:10 pm 9:10 pm
Sounds like the right track to me . . . .
Over 3 million jobs have been added since Obama’s policies hit full stride. Oil production in the country is up. Green energy production in the country is up. GM is back at the #1 car company in the world! Third shifts are being added at automotive plants. Bin Laden is dead. Kaddafhi is gone. Many, many al Qaeda leaders are gone. All of the world including Russia and China are onside against Iranian nuclear development. Nuclear inspectors are back in Iran. The stock market has gone up hugely since Obama’s policies began to kick in. This is a top of the line administration.
Had Bush or any Republican accomplished all of this in 3 years, the right wingers would be creaming their jeans and calling him one of the greatest presidents of all time. Trouble is – it isn’t Bush – it’s Obama – and right wingers are biased hypocrites .
Posted by: Judy | January 30, 2012, 12:23 am 12:23 am
“Every single one of the substantive charges was ultimately thrown out, period,” Gingrich said, referencing a 1999 IRS report that found Gingrich had not violated any tax laws.
Just becuase he didn’t break any laws, doesn’t mean he didnt voilate ethics…..
Posted by: manda | February 27, 2012, 3:15 pm 3:15 pm