Romney Campaign Press Release - New York Times: "Gingrich's Deep Ties to Freddie Mac"

Mr. Gingrich has faced many questions recently about the more than $1.6 million in consulting fees he got from Freddie Mac since leaving Congress in 1999. But part of the relationship started years earlier, as records and interviews show that Mr. Gingrich, as House leader in the 1990s, aligned himself with Freddie and Fannie on a number of key issues — defending them in Congress against political attacks, joining with them on housing projects and seeing top aides go work for them."

"Gingrich's Deep Ties To Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac"

New York Times

By Eric Lichtblau

February 3, 2012

www.nytimes.com

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Mr. Gingrich has faced many questions recently about the more than $1.6 million in consulting fees he got from Freddie Mac since leaving Congress in 1999. But part of the relationship started years earlier, as records and interviews show that Mr. Gingrich, as House leader in the 1990s, aligned himself with Freddie and Fannie on a number of key issues — defending them in Congress against political attacks, joining with them on housing projects and seeing top aides go work for them.

While Mr. Gingrich has minimized his past connections to the two closely related companies on the campaign trail, his Congressional record shows that his political and financial ties to the firms run deeper and farther back than he has acknowledged publicly and, in fact, set the stage for the lucrative consulting work that followed.

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But while in Congress, Mr. Gingrich had kind words for the companies. Announcing a housing partnership in Atlanta in 1995, for instance, he held up Fannie as "an excellent example of a former government institution fulfilling its mandate while functioning in the market economy."

He was far from Fannie and Freddie's only Congressional supporter in those years; before the stain of the 2008 housing collapse, the companies' allies were legion.

But Mr. Gingrich's help was seen as particularly crucial after the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, as Freddie and Fannie tried to turn back rising hostility from some Republicans over their mission, structure and financing.

Once he became speaker in 1995, Mr. Gingrich's support loomed large as the companies sought to shore up flagging confidence among the Republicans and bolster the case for home ownership, officials said.

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Mr. Gingrich's senior advisers were important as well, with a handful of his aides and confidants going on to work for Freddie and Fannie or for lobbying groups that represented them. Of particular significance, several officials said, was Fannie's hiring of Arne L. Christenson, Mr. Gingrich's chief of staff, as a top executive and lobbyist in 1999.

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In a showdown critical to the companies' fortunes, Mr. Gingrich played an important behind-the-scenes role in helping block a proposal in 1995 that would have forced Fannie and Freddie — rather than taxpayers — to pay potentially billions of dollars in increased fees, according to interviews and press accounts at the time.

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Through their lobbyists, Freddie and Fannie fought hard against the plan, and Mr. Gingrich made his opposition to it clear in a meeting with Mr. Leach on Capitol Hill. By the time the two men emerged, the proposal was dead.

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Beyond his role in thwarting legislative threats, Mr. Gingrich also worked with Fannie and Freddie on a number of housing projects in the United States and overseas.

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The Belfast project was sponsored principally by Fannie and Freddie, along with Habitat for Humanity and the National Association of Realtors. The Realtors' association called the housing project "a truly unique partnership" between lawmakers and the housing industry.

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Public money was apparently used for portions of the trip, considered Congressional business, but the breakdown on the financing, and what part was covered by Fannie and Freddie, could not be determined. Congressional records indicate that Mr. Gingrich did not file a financial disclosure statement for 1998 that would show gifts and trips provided by outside groups that year, although House rules appear to require him to have filed a report within 30 days after he left Congress under an ethics cloud in January 1999.

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But months after Mr. Gingrich left Congress, his direct involvement became clear, as his consulting company signed a $25,000-a-month contract with Freddie. In 2006, he signed a second contract with Freddie as a strategic adviser, a role he described initially as a "historian." Mr. Romney has branded the work as "influence peddler."

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Some of Mr. Gingrich's defenses have fallen flat, however, as when he attacked Mr. Romney in a debate last month for holding mutual fund investments in Freddie and Fannie.

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