Rep. Gephardt Alleges GOP Cover-Up to Aid Gingrich

WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) on Sunday waded into the partisan furor swirling around Newt Gingrich’s ethics violations, accusing Republicans of engaging in a cover-up to prevent evidence against the House speaker from coming to light before all members decide his punishment.

Gephardt’s accusation came as he criticized the decision by the House GOP to vote on Gingrich’s punishment Jan. 21, even though a written report on the case will not be available until late this week and public hearings will have to be conducted through the weekend.

“Why are we rushing to get through this?” he asked on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “I think it’s only to cover it up, to make sure people don’t have the facts. All we’ve asked for is a normal, reasonable process.”

Gephardt’s comments mark the first time he has spoken out openly against the Republicans’ handling of the affair.

Meanwhile, Republican congressional leaders also went on the attack, with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) demanding a high-level investigation into how a recording of a cellular telephone call potentially damaging to Gingrich ended up being leaked to the press. Two other leading GOP figures, responding to reports that a Democratic congressman gave the tape to reporters, said if that proves to be so, the House member should resign.

Time magazine, in its current edition, quotes anonymous GOP sources as saying they suspect that Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), a House Ethics Committee member, leaked the recording. But the GOP leaders did not publicly accuse McDermott on Sunday.

Collectively, the developments brought a new level of intensity to the increasingly partisan and bitter affair that threatens to polarize the new Congress as it begins work.

For the moment, Democrats are focusing their fire on the GOP’s refusal to delay the full House vote on Gingrich’s punishment.

Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, head of the GOP congressional campaign committee, said on CNN’s “Late Edition” that to meet a previously agreed-upon Jan. 21 deadline for the House vote, televised public hearings by the Ethics Committee on the Gingrich probe will start Friday and could run through next Monday, Inauguration Day. The full House vote on punishment for the Georgia Republican would follow the next day.

While Republicans insist that the tight schedule is born of a desire to deal with the affair swiftly so Congress can concentrate on legislation, Democrats see it as one more example of a process whose aim is more about damage control than justice.

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The recorded call--apparently picked up on a police scanner from the cell phone of Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as he was traveling in Florida--appears to be of a strategy session among Gingrich and other House GOP leaders concerning his ethics case. The discussion occurred Dec. 21, the day he first admitted wrongdoing to the Ethics Committee and then pledged not to organize any campaign to counter the effects of the admissions.

Telephone calls by The Times to McDermott’s congressional office in Washington and to his district office in Seattle went unanswered Sunday.

Gingrich has admitted giving the Ethics Committee false information about a college course he taught and its relationship to his political activities, and by failing to ensure he complied with federal laws that bar the use of tax-exempt funds for partisan activities.