Much Is at Stake as Parties Await Report, Hearings on Gingrich Ethics Controversy

WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee investigation of Speaker Newt Gingrich entered its final, make-or-break phase Thursday as the panel’s special counsel worked to meet a midnight deadline for filing his report and the panel prepared for nationally televised public hearings on how to punish Gingrich.

Those hearings, which are expected to begin this afternoon, will offer the first detailed public discussion of the case. But it will be far more truncated than originally expected, leaving Gingrich’s Democratic critics fuming that Republicans have succeeded in keeping a lid on public exposure of Gingrich’s misdeeds.

“This is a political effort on the part of the Republican leadership to minimize the political damage to the speaker,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento). “They want to get this behind them and move on.”

After committee special counsel James M. Cole files his report, it will be distributed to committee members for their approval. Then the report will be sent by overnight mail to other members of the House, who are scattered around the country, and released to the public.

Gingrich critics have been counting on the report and public hearings to generate increased pressure on the House to punish Gingrich harshly for violating House rules in connection with a college course that he once taught with financial support from a nonprofit foundation.

A four-person investigative subcommittee of the Ethics Committee has found--and Gingrich has admitted--that he violated House rules by providing false information about the connection between the course and his political empire and failing to ensure that he complied with tax laws that bar using contributions from tax-exempt foundations for political purposes.

As he prepared to return to Washington on Thursday from his home in Georgia, Gingrich echoed comments made Wednesday by President Clinton, who suggested that lawmakers have been spending too much time and energy on partisan bickering over ethics.

“I think people realize ethics are important,” Gingrich told Cable News Network. “But it has to be seen as part of a larger system. It can’t devour everything else.”

Much is at stake for both sides in the disclosures of the next few days, when the veil of secrecy will be pulled for the first time from the details of Cole’s work. His report is expected to run hundreds of pages. Late Thursday, installments of the report were being hand-delivered to members of the committee. Asked in the early evening if he would make his midnight deadline, a weary Cole told reporters: “Gonna try.”

Although details of the committee’s schedule were still being worked out late Thursday, sources said that the panel likely would meet in closed session today to receive the report formally and authorize its release. It would then conduct a public meeting, perhaps as early as this afternoon and possibly running into Saturday. But sources said that a Sunday meeting is not expected.

Gingrich allies are hoping that the report and hearings will include no major revelations of additional wrongdoing. Democratic critics of Gingrich are hoping that Cole will present a more damning portrait of Gingrich’s misdeeds than were included in the 22-page summary released in December by the committee’s investigative subcommittee.

That statement was silent on the question of whether Gingrich deliberately misled the committee or skirted tax law. Gingrich has insisted that any violations were not intentional.

Either way, the public will see far less of Cole and the committee than had been envisioned, and the political dynamics heading into the hearings are far more favorable to Gingrich than expected a week ago.

That shift is testimony, in part, to how successfully Republicans have played hardball for the last week, as they managed to curtail the length of the hearings and stand firm on their insistence that the matter come to a House vote Jan. 21.

The panel initially planned five or more days of public hearings, to be televised nationally. But after Democrats complained that the schedule called for voting on the punishment before Cole’s report was available, Ethics Committee Chairwoman Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) unilaterally postponed the hearings.

She said that she ordered the change to give Cole more time to prepare the report. Democrats said that it was an obvious political ploy to cut back on damaging publicity, but they were powerless to change the ruling.

Democrats were further thrown on the defensive by accusations that Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee, had given reporters a secret tape-recording of a telephone conference call between Gingrich and his GOP lieutenants.

Clearly infuriated that they seem to have lost any political advantage they had, Democrats fumed. “It’s humiliating,” said one Democratic strategist. “We have no leverage.”

“My compliments to the political acumen of the Republicans for changing the subject,” said Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). “Gingrich has done a good job of going from the defensive to the offensive.”

Stanley Brand, former House counsel, said that the hearing schedule was out of step with the panel’s past practice. “This truncated rush to judgment doesn’t really square with the precedents,” Brand said. “But nothing in this case really has.”

During the hearings, the committee will hear arguments from Cole and Gingrich’s lawyer about what punishment is appropriate. Republicans have said that they expect the panel to recommend a reprimand and possibly a monetary fine and a referral of the case to the Internal Revenue Service for further investigation.

The lightest punishments available to the Ethics Committee, such as a letter of reproval, do not require a vote of the full House. A reprimand goes to the House floor, as do the two harsher forms of punishment. Censure is a stricter rebuke and would force Gingrich to step down as speaker. Expulsion from the House is the stiffest punishment, and no one expects that to happen to Gingrich.

Based on a review of precedents, Brand argued that Gingrich’s punishment should be more than a reprimand but less than a censure.

But some Republicans will argue that a lighter punishment is justified. In a letter expected to be circulated after the Ethics Committee issues its report, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is expecting to argue that a reprimand is justified only in cases where members intentionally mislead the committee.

He will cite the committee’s recent handling of a complaint against House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who received only a letter admonishing him for filing conflicting statements about a real estate transaction on his financial-disclosure form and other official documents.

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Q&A; on the Ethics Case

Confused about the details of the ethics inquiry involving House Speaker Newt Gingrich? Here’s a primer:

Q: When did the House Ethics Committee investigation start?

A: Dec. 6, 1995, spurred by questions about a course Gingrich taught between 1993 and 1995 for Kennesaw State College and Reinhardt College in Georgia. The course, “Renewing American Civilization,” was financed with tax-exempt contributions from the Progress and Freedom Foundation. In addition to having students attend the classes, the course was televised by satellite and sold to businesses on videotape for about $200 by the Kennesaw State College Foundation and the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Both foundations used tax-exempt donations to pay for televising the course.

Q: What is the Progress and Freedom Foundation?

A: It was formed in 1993 as a nonprofit, conservative think tank based in Washington to conduct research on methods for the “advancement of American society.” It has tax-exempt status.

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Q: What has been the focus of the House investigation?

A: On whether the course’s content was so partisan that its financing by a tax-exempt organization violated federal law, which prohibits such groups from participating in partisan activity.

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Q: Did the committee investigate anything else?

A: The inquiry was expanded to determine if Gingrich “provided accurate, reliable and complete information” about the course as well as whether the course and the Progress and Freedom Foundation had any relationship to his political action committee, GOPAC.

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Q: What is GOPAC?

A: The GOP Action Committee was formed in 1978 by 13 Republican governors to support candidates for state and local offices. When Gingrich became its general chairman in 1986, the group began focusing on winning control of the House. When that occurred in 1994, many Republicans elected that year credited GOPAC with providing valuable information and support. It is not tax-exempt.

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Q: How is GOPAC related to the college course?

A: GOPAC staff members were involved in developing and raising money for the course.

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Q: What misdeeds has Gingrich acknowledged?

A: Gingrich has said that, because of a foul-up by his lawyers, he provided incorrect information to the committee on GOPAC involvement in the college course. He also admitted that he should have sought legal advice before raising money through tax-exempt foundations. The statement he signed stopped short of saying that he had violated federal tax law by using tax-exempt foundations for partisan activity.