Gingrich Challenges Pelosi to 'Bring Out' Damaging Information

By Jon E. Dougherty at 25 Jan 2012

(Newsroom America) -- Top Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Wednesday challenged House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi go ahead and release any allegedly damaging information she had on him, calling on her to "bring it out" after she suggested for a second time she had such information.

"I think if she knows something, she ought to say it, and if she doesn't know something, she ought to quit saying it," Gingrich said in an interview with Fox News. "But this is baloney."

Pelosi said earlier in a CNN interview that Gingrich, who is surging in the polls in Florida and nationwide following his South Carolina win, would never "win" the presidency.

"That's not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it -- it isn't going to happen," Pelosi said.

When asked how she could be so certain, she answered, "There's something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative."

In December, Pelosi made similar comments in another interview, saying "we'll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich" one day, and adding "I know a lot about him," referring to her time on the investigative committee that probed Gingrich while he was speaker.

In both cases, however, Pelosi's office backed away from any notion she would be releasing anything improper or that has not been previously disclosed from Gingrich's past, Fox News said.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, told Fox News his boss was referring to the "extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware."

Gingrich was fined $300,000 in 1997 by the House Ethics Committee for violations centering around claims that a history course he taught improperly solicited tax-exempt contributions.

Other ethics charges against him were ultimately dropped. Also, the IRS eventually cleared the organization associated with the solicitation of the contributions.

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