Word: gingriched
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...report, investigator Cole said the committee felt that Gingrich had violated his agreement not to supervise a campaign in his own defense. But the Martins, as well as McDermott, may have violated state and federal law, which makes it a crime to listen in deliberately to a telephone call or to disclose the contents of one that you know has been overheard illegally. fbi Director Louis Freeh ordered an investigation. McDermott had to recuse himself from the Gingrich deliberations. As a diversion from Newt's troubles, the tape tangle was "like a gift from heaven," says a senior House Republican...
...over. If in the end Gingrich has to reach into his own pocket, there is always the $471,000 in royalties he is reported to have earned on To Renew America, the 1995 book for which he was originally offered an improbable $4.5 million advance. The New Republic points out this week that the book leans heavily on copyrighted materials developed for Newt's college course by the tax-exempt group that is at the center of his current problems...
That could well be a violation of irs rules that prohibit tax-exempt organizations from transferring assets to private individuals. It also calls into question Gingrich's claim that he's no Jim Wright--the Democratic Speaker whose ouster he spearheaded--because he never sought to line his own pockets. After taxes, his royalties would have stuffed his pockets with something like $300,000--the amount of his fine. Maybe he should hand it over. If nothing else, it would prove that even when you can't count on the rule of law in Washington, there's always poetic justice...
Besieged politicians plotting against their enemies, for instance? Embattled House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose travails took a bizarre turn two weeks ago when a transcript of his cell-phone war council with G.O.P. allies turned up in the New York Times, may be comforted to know that his was a cutting-edge victimization. John and Alice Martin, the Florida residents-cum-Democratic Party activists who taped Newt & Co.'s call, spotlighted one of America's most curious subcultures...
...what about the Martins? The Gingrich case illustrates how difficult privacy laws are to enforce in the wireless era. The 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act made it illegal to divulge intentionally the contents of cell-phone calls, and a 1993 statute outlawed the sale and manufacture of scanners capable of receiving cell-phone signals. But the scanners sold today are easily modified into full-frequency devices. In a press conference last week, the Martins portrayed themselves as hobbyists who accidentally heard the Gingrich call on an ordinary Radio Shack scanner, taped it out of excitement at witnessing history and gave...