• Gingrich contract with Freddie Mac leaves questions unanswered

    By Michael Isikoff, NBC News

    The consulting firm founded by Newt Gingrich on Monday night released a copy of its 2006 contract with Freddie Mac showing it was paid $300,000 to provide unspecified "consulting and related services" for one of the federally sponsored housing agency's top lobbyists.

    The contract between the Center for Health Transformation, an arm of the Gingrich Group, and Freddie Mac shows that Gingrich reported directly to  to Craig Thomas, who at the time served as the agency’s director of public policy and was one of its registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill. 

    But a spokeswoman for the firm said it was unable to find an earlier contract dating to 1999 and renewed until 2002. The spokeswoman, Susan Meyers, also could not say whether Gingrich or any of its employees produced any written reports for Freddie Mac as part of the nearly $1.8 million in consulting fees it was paid.  

    "I have no idea if there were any written reports," she said. "This is all we are authorized to release."

    The 15-page contract, signed with a Gingrich Group executive, sheds little light on what Gingrich actually did for Freddie Mac -- a question that has become an issue in the presidential campaign. It states only that the Gingrich Group will that provide unspecified consulting services for Thomas.

     

    One of the provisions states that consulting "will provide status reports" to Freddie Mac on its work and supply it with copies "of any disclosures or reports it may be required to file by law, such as reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act."

    Gingrich, who originally said he provided advice "as a historian," has adamantly denied he did any lobbying for Freddie Mac, an assertion repeated by Nancy Desmond, the CEO of the Center for Health Transformation.

    “As noted under the scope of work section on Page 14, the contract was solely for consulting purposes and not lobbying," she said in a statement posted along with the contract on the group's website.

    According to Meyers, the firm originally signed a contract with Freddie Mac in late 1999 for the same  $25,000 a month, which  was renewed until 2002. The firm was unable to locate that document and the renewals, she said. After lapsing, the Freddie Mac consulting agreement was signed again in 2006 and was renewed in 2007.

    All Freddie Mac reports are now controlled by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The agency did not respond to requests for comment Monday. It recently rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, for any and all records that Freddie Mac may have had on the Gingrich Group, stating in a Dec. 6, 2011 letter: "A search of FHFA records located no documents responsive to your request."

  • Gingrich says he pocketed about $35,000 per year from Freddie Mac work

    By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com

     

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he personally pocketed about $35,000 per year for his work with mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

    For the first time on Monday, Gingrich pegged his own personal earnings from an extended consulting contract between his firm and Freddie Mac. His namesake firm, the Gingrich Group, earned at least an estimated $1.6 million, according to an initial Bloomberg News report on the relationship.

    "I hope, starting today, we can clear up this and frankly I hope my friends will take down the ads that are fundamentally inaccurate," Gingrich explained to supporters during a question-and-answer session with supporters in Iowa. "One, the contract. Freddie Mac hired Gingrich Group, which is a firm which had offices in three cities. Of the total contract, it was a six year period contract, of the total amount they keep talking about I probably got about $35,000 a year."

    As if to minimize just how much he earned as a result of the contract, Gingrich said his yearly take-home from working with Freddie Mac was less than what he would earn in fees for delivering a single speech.

    "Now that's less than I was making per speech so that's what my particular interest in it was that amount," he said.

    The former speaker's work for the troubled mortgage giant, which was taken into government conservatorship in 2008 along with its counterpart, Fannie Mae, has emerged as a point of scrutiny for Gingrich's foes in the Republican presidential primary.

    "For weeks now, Speaker Gingrich has struggled to explain exactly what he did in return for $1.6 million in fees from Freddie Mac," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an email this morning to reporters. "Not only has he distanced himself from his past work, but he is also distancing himself from the money he earned -- saying it was for ‘overhead’ or that he didn’t ‘personally’ receive it."

    Texas Rep. Ron Paul has also vocally criticized Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac, having highlighted that relationship in television ads running in Iowa.

    Gingrich has repeatedly denied having lobbied on Freddie Mac's behalf, and sought to highlight work he had done that might have conflicted with the lender's financial interests.

    "Both Congressman Rick Lazio, who was the Chairman of the House reform effort when I was the Speaker, and Congressman JC Watts, who was the head for a number of years of the Freddie Mac watch committee, have both come out publicly and said it is bologna to suggest that I any way tried to use any influence with anybody on the Freddie Mac issue," he said. "So I just want to come down to what did we provide. We provided strategic advice."

    The total extent of how much wealth Gingrich might have gained as a result of the contract, though, is murky. Whatever fees were collected by the Gingrich Group could have contributed to building the value of the former speaker's consulting practice.

    NBC's Chuck Todd has more.