Romney is going to release his 2010 tax schedule and a summary of his 2011. Gingrich released only his 2010. But that is not the "surprise." Rather, it has to do with Newt's sequestered ethics documents from 1997. After Romney releases his taxes, on Tuesday, the Gingrich excuse of Romney’s own lack of transparency will be history and the call to release the documents surrounding the 1997 investigation and censorship of the only Speaker in history will have an irresistible ring to it.
Yesterday, the plot thickened as Gingrich jumped down the throats of the morning hosts on Fox, for asking about the disclosure of those documents. In his attack, the Fox News report framed his comments in this wise:
" Saying the entire report is available online, and that anyone with questions afterward could “let me know,” Gingrich laid into Morris for asking the question. That’s 900 pages, Romney’s released zero, and you’re asking me to take seriously a challenge about openness from Romney?” Gingrich asked.
My question is this: If the documents are already out there, why Gingrich's panic attack at the news that Nancy Pelosi is thinking of exposing them to them to the media? Pelosi told the website, Talking Points Memo on December 2, that she
" . . . . relished the possibility that Gingrich might become the Republican nominee. . . . . . . One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. 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.”
Newt threatened an ethics investigation of his own, should Pelosi breach House rules and make the revelations Gingrich so obviously fears.
While Gingrich might be able to resist the pressure to make these documents public before the Republican National Convention at the end of August, there is no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama, the campaign thug from Chicago, already knows what Pelosi knows.
We need to know what they know. That is not a "right," it is a necessity. If that does not happen, Newt should step down from this campaign. To put the entire election in jeopardy over this matter is sheer selfishness of the highest order and a betrayal of conservative values and effort.
And the beat goes on.
Click here to view Part 4 of the Report »
Update: here is the House report on the investigation. Newt supporters argue that this should end the matter. They remind us all that the IRS did an investigation of its own and found no fault on the part of Newt. I once used this very fact to defend Gingrich, myself. But did the IRS investigate the issues that are currently a deep, dark, secret? Is Nancy Pelosi just blowing smoke? Funny, Newt doesn't seem to think so, does he?
Again, here are those docs:
My question remains: if the above files are the end of the matter, why Newt’s angry response? Andrew Breitbart at Big Government (he is one of the good guys), apparently thinks that this is a closed matter. But that is not good enough for me.
Can we say with confidence that there is nothing more, that Newt’s anger at being asked a most reasonable question is not a bad sign? Look, track the man’s response. When asked to “reveal,” Newt’s first response was not “They are all in the public domain.” Nope. Rather, he hide behind Romney’s silly refusal to release his tax forms “now.” Of course Newt knows what comes next. A good debater is first, an excellent stratetian. He knows that Romney is going to camp on his demand for those ethic documents - and there must be some that have not been revealed. So he continues to fashion a response that will all him to ignore the demand, perhaps claiming "full discovery" is a matter of record.
Like I said, "So why the anger? Why the threats? Why the arrogant pomp and circumstance? "
Kind of exciting, isn’t it?