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Assume the position, Newt
Former House Speaker Gingrich faces embarrassing questions about his sex life and marital fidelity.
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By David Corn
Sept. 8, 1999 | WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sometime in the next few weeks, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may find himself in a position remarkably similar to the one that led to President Clinton's impeachment.
In divorce proceedings Gingrich initiated against his second wife, Marianne, the onetime champion of "family values" could be forced to sit through a legal deposition in which he is asked a series of probing questions about his personal life, queries that will likely cover allegations that he has engaged in a long-term extramarital affair with Callista Bisek, a 33-year-old House staffer.
Already, Marianne's legal team has won permission from a superior court judge in Georgia to take a videotaped deposition from Bisek on Sept. 29. If that deposition proceeds, Marianne's attorneys certainly will grill Bisek on whether Gingrich was an adulterer when he was successfully leading the so-called Republican Revolution, and when he was pushing for Clinton's impeachment.
Assuming that Gingrich eventually will have to appear for his own deposition, Salon has composed a partial list of questions that the former House speaker is likely to face.
When the GOP, led by you, won the House with the support of the religious right, were you engaging in adultery? (For the sake of this question, let's assume a wide definition of adultery: any physical contact of a romantic or lustful nature between you and a person not your wife.)
Were you concerned that anyone who knew of this alleged affair could blackmail or pressure you? Did any legislator, lobbyist, aide or anyone else ever attempt to leverage information about you and Bisek into favorable treatment?
Were you involved in any way with Bisek's promotion to her $55,000-a-year job on the House Agriculture Committee?
Were you aware that when she received the position with the Agriculture Committee the rumors of a relationship between you and Bisek were prevalent on Capitol Hill? Did you suspect that some might think she had received preferential treatment because of her relationship with you?
Your divorce lawyer recently told reporters that you and Marianne were estranged for six years starting in 1987, but that you reconciled in late 1993 or early 1994. But when you filed ethics charges against House Speaker Jim Wright in 1988 -- the "loneliest day of my career," you called it -- Marianne and you walked hand in hand to the ethics committee office. "She stood by me when it seemed no one else would," you later wrote. Since by your own admission the two of you were estranged at that time, were you therefore using her as a political prop in that instance?
How long after your 1993/1994 reconciliation did you manage to stay faithful to your wife?
When you became speaker in January 1995 and appeared often in public with Marianne, were you in fact maintaining a sham marriage with her?
When you became speaker, you declared Marianne to be your "best friend and closest adviser." Were you telling the truth when you said that?
When Vanity Fair in 1995 floated gossip about you and Bisek, did that cause you to cease that relationship or to maintain distance from Bisek? If not, do you believe you were acting recklessly?
Did you ever give gifts to Bisek? Did you ever receive gifts from Bisek? If so, please provide a list for each category.
Did you ever socialize with Bisek in the speaker's office? Were you ever alone with her in that office? Did you ever engage in any sexual activity there or elsewhere on government property with her or with any other person? Next page | Is oral sex "sex" in your opinion?
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