Romney: Gingrich profited as Florida suffered in housing crisis

Moving aggressively to halt Newt Gingrich’s momentum after his South Carolina win, Mitt Romney accused the former House speaker on Monday of profiting from the pain of Floridians affected by the housing crisis.

After holding a roundtable with voters struggling as a result of the foreclosure crisis, Romney said he wished that Gingrich had heard their stories as a former adviser to mortgage giant Freddie Mac, which many Republicans blame for the housing meltdown. Accusing Gingrich of lobbying for Freddie Mac -- a charge the former House speaker has vehemently denied -- Romney repeated his call for Gingrich to return more than $1.6 million that his firm earned for their advice, as well as records showing their “work product.”

“Let’s have full disclosure of what’s going on,” Romney told reporters during a press conference after his roundtable event. “By the way, saying that Newt Gingrich is a lobbyist is just a matter of fact. He indicates that he doesn’t fall within the narrow definition of lobbying that we might have in mind, but if you’re working for a company, getting paid through a company through one of your many entities, and you’re speaking with congressmen in a way that would help that company, that’s lobbying. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.”

In tandem with Romney’s event in Tampa, Fla., his campaign aired a tough new ad slamming Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac: “While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in,” the ad’s narrator says. “Gingrich was paid over $1.6 million by the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis.” (see video below)

The ad mocks Gingrich’s claim that he was hired by Freddie Mac as “a historian” and also alleges that he “cashed in as a DC insider” after leaving Congress.

During his news conference, Romney also alluded to the ethics investigation into Gingrich’s conduct that resulted in Gingrich being sanctioned by members of the U.S. House and fined $300,000 (a mark on Gingrich’s record that is also mentioned in the new Florida ad). He suggested that the public needed to vet Gingrich’s career after he left Congress – which he said might present “an October surprise” that could harm Republicans’ chances of regaining the White House.

“Let’s see the records from the ethics investigation, let’s see what they show, let’s see who his clients were,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “At the time he was lobbying Republican congressmen for Medicare Part D, was he working, or were his entities working with any healthcare companies that could have benefited from that? That could represent not just evidence of lobbying but potentially wrongful activity of some kind.”

Pressed on what he meant by wrongful activity, Romney said the public needs to understand “what his activity has been over the last 15 years, and make sure that it’s conformed with all the regulations that might exist.”

In the view of many, he added, “being on K Street, working for various corporations and providing influence in the governmental sector is a form of lobbying, and if he’s been lobbying, he ought to acknowledge that.”

Romney also continued to question Gingrich’s temperament and accused him of changing his mind on key issues like education and Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan.

“He’s gone from pillar to post almost like a pinball machine, from item to item in a way which is highly erratic,” he said. “It does not suggest a stable, thoughtful course which is normally associated with leadership.”

Romney’s assault on Gingrich comes after he lost the South Carolina primary to the former House speaker by 12 points. In the lead-up to the primary, Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has since dropped out of the race, argued that the American people should be able to vet Romney’s tax returns to see if there are any investments that could provide ammunition for the Democrats in the fall.

Romney plans to release his tax returns Tuesday morning. He said it was a coincidence that he would be putting them out on the same day that President Obama is set to deliver his State of the Union address.

“The reason that they’re being released that day is that the trustee of my trust, that invests our family funds, is available that day,” Romney said. “It was just to accommodate his schedule.”