Last week I unearthed Newt's 1980 divorce file after it had been hidden from public view for years. A copy was subsequently provided to CNN serving as the basis for their story about unearthing the documents.
And what was NOT contained in the file, once again exposes Newt for lying to the American public.
While I was at the Carroll County court house last week seeking to obtain a copy of Newt’s divorce file after Bloomberg News and CNN had been told that the file was sealed, I briefly encountered State Court Solicitor Doug Vassy, prior to my first official stop at the filing counter. I inquired of him where all the old files were now being kept and he graciously showed me to a room at the end of the basement hall. At the time, he had no idea what I was looking for and I had no idea that he had been involved in what I was looking for.
Of course, as everyone now knows, Newt’s divorce file had long ago been pulled from that room and placed in protective custody in an undisclosed location.
Mrs. Gingrich was represented in the divorce by Edward Bates, an attorney with Hurt, Richardson, Garner, Todd & Cadenhead in Atlanta. At some point, that firm had decided to associate local counsel on the case and hired Doug Vassy of the Carrollton firm of Vassy & Mecklin; the Mecklin half now being Judge Mecklin, husband of my first cousin Kay Hardegree.
After things had sort of died down following the release of Newt’s file to me last Thursday and CNN’s story on Monday, I started second guessing whether I had in fact received the entire file. I wasn’t questioning Clerk Lee; I really felt that he had given me what he thought was the entire file, but I wondered if there were items which had been in the file years ago of which he may not have been aware.
So yesterday, I called Solicitor Vassy and asked him if their were any items, beyond the ones I named to him, which should have been in the file; especially, a deposition of Newt.
He assured me there were not.
When I first started practicing law, and for several years thereafter, Doug called me the fudgesicle lawyer. Back when my mother was pregnant with me more years ago than I care to say, she apparently experienced severe fudgesicle cravings. She would satiate these cravings by walking down Matthews Avenue to the Piggly Wiggly where she would purchase fudgesicles by the box. And Doug, the wide-eyed, after-school bag boy, never let her forget it.
So I trust Doug. And not just because he knew me before I existed.
Earlier this afternoon, Wayne Barrett at the Daily Beast published an article discussing the fact that no depositions were found in the file which I recovered last Thursday. Barrett, also, spoke with Solicitor Vassy about whether a deposition had been taken of Newt during the divorce prodeedings.
The detailed record of the first divorce, unearthed recently by Georgia blogger Craig Hardegree and CNN, indicates that Gingrich’s deposition was rescheduled from Oct. 20, 1980, to Nov. 10, and then reset again for Jan. 14, 1981. The parties reached an agreement on the divorce on Jan. 31, two weeks after the scheduled deposition. Vassy said: “The deposition was noticed to take place at my office. I don’t remember ever taking his deposition. I don’t remember anything like that happening at my office. I don’t recall taking or being involved in it.” Citing the case file as well as his own recollections, Vassy concluded: “There was no deposition.”
Much has been said about Newt leading the impeachment charge against Clinton for having adulterous sex with Monica while Newt himself was having adulterous sex with Callista. And by now, everyone is familiar with Newt’s defense of his hypocrisy: Clinton was a much, much worse scoundrel because he lied under oath about his adulterous sex whereas Newt was not under oath when he lied to his then-wife Marianne about his own adulterous sex. If Newt learned anything from Clinton, it’s how to parse.
From the Daily Beast:
A review of Newt Gingrich’s divorce records contradicts his public contention that it was his own divorce experience with depositions that forced him to push for Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. Insisting in a 2000 New York Times interview that he had been “through two tough divorce depositions in my life and I told the truth both times,” Gingrich has long justified his votes in favor of all four of the impeachment counts against Clinton on the basis of the president’s alleged perjury. But a Daily Beast probe of both divorces can find no evidence that he was ever deposed.
Here is Newt on Fox News back in March:
And the transcription:
GINGRICH: No. Look, obviously it’s complex and obviously I wasn’t doing things to be proud of. On the other hand, what I said clearly — and I knew this in part going through a divorce. I had been in depositions. I had been in situations where you had to swear to tell the truth. I understood that in a federal court, in a case in front of a federal judge, to commit a felony, which is what he did, perjury was a felony. The question I raised was simple: should a president of the United States be above the law?
True, I have personally only confirmed that Newt did not sit for a deposition in his first divorce -- because I only know about things happening in Mayberry and the second divorce occurred over in Mt. Pilot. But while the
Daily Beast has confirmed that Newt was not deposed in either of his two divorces, the second divorce doesn't really matter because it occurred after the impeachment proceedings, meaning any depositions in the second case could not have provided Newt with the pre-impeachment inspiration and realization that lying under oath in a deposition unequivocally calls for impeachment.
Newt is using a blatant lie to explain why he is not a hypocrite.