Democratic Whip Calls for Ethics Probe of Gingrich : Politics: An outside counsel is sought to find out if the incoming Speaker’s college course is truly educational or a thinly veiled propaganda effort.

The second-ranking Democrat in the House called Thursday for the appointment of an outside counsel to investigate whether incoming Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has violated House ethics rules and federal tax codes with his network of political organizations.

The allegations, already under review by the House Ethics Committee, suggest that the Republican leader used monies and organizations that were designated as nonpartisan to recruit, fund and train Republican candidates and party activists.

“With the multitude of unanswered questions, ethical allegations and serious conflicts of interest faced by the incoming Speaker of the House, I believe that it is imperative that we have an independent, nonpartisan . . . outside counsel to carry forward this investigation,” said Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), the incoming House minority whip. “If Mr. Gingrich has nothing to hide, he will have nothing to fear from this investigation.”

Bonior’s proposal was immediately denounced as “ill-considered” by Gingrich’s office. “The matter is currently pending before the ethics committee of the 103rd Congress,” said Gingrich press spokesman Tony Blankley, “and I fully expect that committee to favorably complete its deliberations,” before the new Congress convenes on Jan. 4 and its jurisdiction ends.

At the center of the complaint is whether Gingrich’s college course, Renewing American Civilization, is an educational course or a thinly veiled propaganda arm of Gingrich’s political recruitment empire that was improperly financed. The course was paid for with the help of private contributions that were tax-deductible. If the course was political recruitment, according to law, the private citizens who helped finance the class should not have received the tax breaks.

There are also questions about whether some of Gingrich’s tax-exempt political groups were or were not involved in organizing the course.

Bonior’s attack, which was fairly muted in its rhetoric, comes at a moment of euphoria for Gingrich, a chief architect of the Republican landslide in last month’s election. Only a day earlier, the Gingrich-led Republican conference formally approved a series of popular reforms of congressional rules.

But Bonior said that an independent counsel is necessary for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Gingrich has declined to recuse himself from possibly appointing the Republican members of the House ethics panel for the next Congress, at a time when a complaint against him is pending.

Bonior also argued that there is a longstanding precedent to use outside counsels--who do not have some of the same broad investigative powers as special prosecutors or independent counsels--to handle such matters.

The House ethics panel appointed outside counsels in investigating then-House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) in connection with sales of a book he had written and gifts he had received from a Texas businessman, as well as the Abscam case, which was an FBI sting of legislators willing to take bribes.

Bonior made his formal request in a letter to the ethics committee, which has an equal number of Democratic and Republican members, asking it to convene next week to consider his demand.

After Bonior’s press conference, Richard J. Phelan, the attorney who served as outside counsel investigating Wright, delivered a letter to the ethics committee concurring that one is needed in this case.

“I do not pass on the legitimacy of the complaint against Congressman Gingrich,” his letter said. “Without a special counsel, his position is untenable--he will be perceived either as an ethical hypocrite or as out-of-touch with traditional standards of integrity as the leadership he replaced and so often referred to as ‘corrupt.’ ”

In his press conference, Bonior referred to several documents that are part of the complaint that he said raise questions as to whether the private citizens who helped finance Gingrich’s course should have received tax exemptions for their contributions.

One of those documents is a letter written to a potential investor in the class by an aide to Gingrich that said: “The goal of this project is simple: to train, by April, 1996, 200,000 plus citizens into a model for replacing the welfare state and reforming our government.”

Bonior also released a letter that apparently accompanied a $25,000 contribution from Richard Berman of the Employment Policies Institute in Washington. A handwritten note at the bottom said: “Newt--thanks again for the help on today’s committee hearing.”

Bonior called the statement “most disturbing” and said it “makes you wonder exactly what kind of influence or favors this $25,000 check bought.”

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.