Newt Demanded Investigation Into Politicians With Freddie Mac Ties

Newt Gingrich
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Newt Gingrich was so upset over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s political influence in 2008 that he urged Congress to launch an investigation into lawmakers who had taken donations. Gingrich did not mention at the time that he had received a reported $1.6 million from Freddie Mac over eight years to provide “strategic advice.”

His remarks came in a September 24 interview with Sean Hannity, in which the FOX News host asked for his opinion on former government officials who had done work for Freddie Mac in the past:

HANNITY: Now, one of the things that I noticed about Senator Obama’s statement earlier today is he kept bringing up greed on Wall Street. He’s got two economic advisors. One was leading up his vice-presidential selection campaign, Jim Johnson. He used to work at Fannie Mae. He was a top exec at Lehman Brothers. He made tens of millions of dollars. And the Washington Post had reported that Frank Raines made $90 million in six years as the head of Fannie Mae and that he has been an economic advisor for — for Barack Obama. How can we solve the crisis and the greed that Obama is talking about if we don’t start putting some of these guys under oath and the money that they donated to all these, you know, members of the banking committee, et cetera?

GINGRICH: Well, I was going to say, let’s start with putting under oath some of the members of Congress. Senator Dodd, who will presumably be helping write this bill, was the largest single recipient of money from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Senator Obama was second. Senator Clinton was the largest recipient for Lehman Brothers. Senator Obama was second. I think Congress ought to also be under investigation. If we’re looking at agreed [sic], let’s look at the politicians as well as the people who gave to them.

HANNITY: And put them under oath under the threat of perjury, the heads of these committees, those that got money from Fannie and Freddie, because that is also a big part of the equation. If we’re not going to look at the problems and what caused them, we’re going to be doomed to repeat them.

At a debate last month, Gingrich upped the ante even further, saying that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) should be prosecuted and thrown in jail over their ties to Freddie Mac.

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