Listen Live
My Baltimore Spirit Listen Live
Spirit 1400 Featured Video
CLOSE

It has been revealed that the FBI was considering a sting operation on Newt Gingrich in the nineties when Gingrich was the Speaker Of The House but later called it off.

The FBI was investigating Newt Gingrich and his then wife, Marianne Gingrich after arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian also known as “The Merchant Of Death” claimed that he met with Gingrich’s wife about having Gingrich possibly lobby against an arms embargo on Iraq so Soghanalian could receive money.

The Washington Post reports:

The investigation began after the arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, told federal prosecutors and FBI agents in Miami that Marianne Gingrich said during a meeting in Paris in 1995 that she could provide legislative favors through her husband. The case progressed to the point that it was deemed a major investigation requiring approval in Washington.

Soghanalian, a convicted felon who is now dead, said he wanted the speaker’s help in getting the arms embargo lifted so he could collect an $80 million debt from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to an FBI document filed to obtain continuing wiretap authorization for the case. The facts in the document were “developed through a cooperating witness,” whom The Washington Post has confirmed was Soghanalian.

Several months after the meeting in Paris, a man who had been on the trip with Gingrich and Soghanalian told the arms dealer that the embargo could be lifted for the right price. In conversations recorded by Soghanalian, the man, a Miami car salesman named Morty Bennett, stated that Marianne “wanted 10 million dollars to get the job done, five million of which would go directly to Marianne Gingrich,” the document states.

Read More At The Washington Post