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Gingrich Disputes Report on Lesser Role : Politics: GOP colleagues were said to have asked him to take a lower public profile in the budget debate with President Clinton.

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<i> from Times Wire Services</i>

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Saturday took issue with a press report that his GOP colleagues want him to take a lower public profile in the ongoing budget debate with President Clinton.

But in speaking with reporters in his home district, the usually outspoken Gingrich seemed unusually tongue-tied.

“I think I’m trying to find an appropriate profile,” he said shortly after arriving at a bookstore in a suburban strip mall to sign copies of his book, “To Renew America.”

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The Washington Times reported Friday that Gingrich agreed to take on a lower profile in public debate by announcing at a Wednesday meeting with his Republican colleagues that he would “sit on the bench for a while” after having “thrown one too many interceptions.”

The article, which was attributed to several sources, said Gingrich’s decision addressed GOP concerns that his low popularity with many in the electorate has begun to work against party objectives.

On Saturday, Gingrich showed up at the book signing with a stack of press passes and a camera dangling from his neck. He began clicking away at a crowd of photographers and reporters, pausing only to change film.

“And now I finally get to do what I always wanted,” he said to the people he has criticized for biased reporting. “What a great moment.”

When asked about the newspaper report, Gingrich denied that a special meeting with Republicans had taken place, saying: “I have no idea where the Washington Times got that story. I meet with Republicans every day.”

“I’m here. That should be the only answer,” Gingrich continued when queried about the possibility of a diminished role as party spokesman. “Here I am. I’ll let you decide.”

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When asked once again if his GOP colleagues had spoken to him about public gaffes and asked him to take on a lesser role, the Speaker simply grinned and shook his head rather than answering verbally.

Gingrich’s appearance capped a week in which the Federal Election Commission released records claiming that the political action committee he founded and ran until early this year illegally funded his reelection campaign in 1990.

The Speaker, who has angrily denied the FEC charges, declined to discuss the topic.

But a political opponent of the Speaker asked the House Ethics Committee on Saturday to subpoena tape recordings that may have been made by the committee, known as GOPAC.

Former Rep. Ben Jones (D-Ga.) made the request after reading reports that GOPAC documents obtained by the FEC include a record of a 1991 conference call with Gingrich.

In that call, according to the documents, GOPAC officials were asked to lend fax machines and telephone lines to Gingrich and to “investigate capability to tape all phone conversations.”

Jones, who learned of the report in an article in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, said tapes, if they exist, would either confirm or disprove a series of ethics complaints he has made against Gingrich over the past 15 months.

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