Gingrich Linked With False Probe Document

House Speaker Newt Gingrich has given false information to a House ethics panel investigating a college course he once taught, sources close to Gingrich now acknowledge.

But his allies say that the Georgia Republican blames the mistake on his lawyers and did not intentionally mislead the committee.

The effort to shift responsibility is emerging as a key element of Gingrich’s defense in the final stages of the politically charged ethics investigation, as he tries to shore up support among Republicans who will be asked to vote Jan. 7 to give him a second term as House speaker.

A subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee is investigating whether a college course taught by Gingrich was improperly financed by tax-exempt foundations. So far, the panel has not announced its findings or stated whether it has even finished its work.

Gingrich allies, however, already have begun to discuss what they say the panel has determined on the potentially damaging question of whether Gingrich misled the committee about the college course.

“There’s no argument that Newt signed an erroneous statement,” Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.), a top Gingrich lieutenant, told the Associated Press Thursday. “The question the committee has to decide is, did he willfully mislead the committee?”

A Republican source who recently talked to Gingrich about the case said that a key issue involves conflicting accounts given to the committee about the relationship of the college course to GOPAC, a political action committee that Gingrich headed for years.

The source said that Gingrich blames his attorney, Jan Baran, for submitting a document to the Ethics Committee that wrongly claimed GOPAC had no role in the course.

“He felt he had been ill-served,” the source said.

Baran on Wednesday told reporters that he had informed Gingrich on Dec. 14--the day after the ethics panel concluded a series of intensive, closed-door meetings--that he could no longer represent him before the subcommittee.

Baran, a prominent lawyer who has been the GOP’s leading expert on election law for years, did not elaborate. But he made a point of saying that “my firm did not submit any material information to the Ethics Committee without Mr. Gingrich’s prior review and approval. I strongly believe that is the committee’s view as well.”

In a joint statement issued Thursday, Baran and Gingrich spokesman Tony Blankley said that Baran would continue to represent Gingrich but no longer would represent him before the Ethics Committee.

Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), Gingrich’s leading critic, said that the jockeying is a sign of disarray in Gingrich’s camp. “It’s always a sign of trouble when a client fires his attorney,” Bonior said. “But when an attorney fires his client, that’s about as bad as it gets.”

The legal shake-up comes at a critical time. If the investigative subcommittee, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, finds “reason to believe” that Gingrich violated House rules, it would issue the congressional equivalent of an indictment. The other six members of the committee then would act as a jury in hearings to weigh evidence and decide whether the charges were valid.

The ethics panel and Gingrich are under heavy pressure to make some report on the case before Jan. 7, when the new Congress convenes and votes on whether to reelect him as speaker. Some Republicans have said that they would not vote for Gingrich without first seeing a report on the investigation.

At the heart of the investigation is a televised course called Renewing American Civilization that Gingrich taught at two colleges from 1993 to 1995 with financial support from the nonprofit Progress and Freedom Foundation.

A key question before the committee is whether the course was a partisan enterprise improperly financed with tax-exempt contributions. Federal law prohibits tax-exempt foundations from participating in partisan activity. Gingrich argues that the course was purely educational.

But a source familiar with the case said that James Cole, the former federal prosecutor hired as special counsel by the committee, has argued that Gingrich improperly used tax-exempt foundations to raise money for the course.

The panel announced in September that it was investigating whether Gingrich and his attorneys provided “accurate, reliable and complete information” about the course and its relationship to GOPAC.

At issue, sources close to Gingrich said, is a March 27, 1995, document drafted by Baran, signed by Gingrich and submitted to the committee. The document asserted that “GOPAC has not been involved in course fund-raising and has never contributed any money or services to the course.”

But in fact, sources said, GOPAC staff members were involved in helping develop and raise money for the course. Particularly important in the early stages of the course was Jeffrey Eisenach, a former GOPAC executive director who oversaw the course as chief of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. For some time, Eisenach ran the project out of GOPAC headquarters.