Newt Gingrich: “let me pick up the dialog that was just going on because I think people in this country deserve to be told the truth…”

“let me pick up the dialog that was just going on because I think people in this country deserve to be told the truth, and the truth is the Democratic leadership uses the Committee on Rules, in its 40th years of one party control of this House, in order to rig the game for itself. Now the truth is, if I understand it, and the gentleman from South Caroline [Mr. Derrick] can certainly interrupt me if I have this wrong, but the truth is the way this will be rigged is that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] will be allowed to offer a direct amendment which will, in fact, cover the Congress under independent counsel. We will not at that point have a vote on Mr. Gekas. We will not have a chance for every person in the country to see every Member vote yes or no on covering the Congress. At that point the Democratic leadership, through the Committee on Rules, has rigged the game so that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] will offer an amendment which will be a substitute for Mr. Gekas. Mr. Bryant's amendment, and the current and the newly offered bill actually weakens current law. Current law says that the Attorney General, if they are concerned about, quote, personal, political or financial conflict of interests with the accused Member, have an obligation to appoint counsel. that is now being replaced by the much broader term in the public interest. So, in fact we will never get inside the amending process in the committee.”