Newt Gingrich’s campaign admitted today that when Newt firmly insisted that he could provide ABC with character witnesses to refute claims made by his second wife that he desired an “open marriage”, he actually didn’t really have anyone lined up to back his assertion. In short, he lied.
“The story was false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story is false,” he declared in the most recent CNN debate. “We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren’t interested.”
ABC has held from the start that Newt’s camp hadn’t offered them any of the character witnesses the presidential hopeful claimed to have in his back pocket. Well, unless you count the daughters he had with his first wife. When confronted about this Tuesday, Newt insisted ABC’s story was “just plain baloney” and that “they’re not being honest. We had several people prepared … and (ABC News) wasn’t interested.”
Now Gingrich’s campaign is coming forward, saying that the former speaker was wrong both in his debate answer and his interview with CNN.
R.C. Hammond, the campaign’s press secretary, told CNN that the only people offered to ABC were his two daughters, Jackie Cushman and Kathy Gingrich Lubbers, who are probably just a bit too close to dad’s interests to be reliable character witnesses – especially since they make regular appearances for their father on the campaign trail.
What do you think of Newt Gingrich’s move here? Surprised? Old news? Don’t care? Let us know in the comments below.
