Filed by KOSU News in Politics.
January 23, 2012

Twin blasts of news about Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, just 90 minutes before tonight’s GOP debate in Tampa Bay:

– The $25,000-a-month contract his consulting group landed in 2006 from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) was just put online here by a Gingrich-founded organization, the Center for Health Transformation. The contract says The Gingrich Group would provide “consulting and related services.”

One of Gingrich’s GOP opponents, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has tried to make an issue out of Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac — saying today that it could be the source of “October surprises” that would haunt Republicans if Gingrich becomes their nominee. Gingrich has said he never lobbied for Freddie Mac.

Still not unveiled: other contracts the Gingrich Group signed with Freddie Mac.

– Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun, as well as reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post, are reporting that the pro-Gingrich superPAC Winning Our Future is getting a $5 million contribution from Miriam Adelson. She’s the wife of “Sheldon Adelson, a longtime Gingrich friend and conservative ally who contributed $5 million to the super PAC … earlier this month,” as the Times reminds us. That earlier contribution appears to have been one of the key factors in Gingrich’s decisive win in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]