Phony email claims Gingrich forced second wife to have abortion

Katie McHugh Associate Editor
Font Size:

In the dead heat of the South Carolina primary race, Newt Gingrich’s resurgence is seeing the sort of dirty-tricks response that the Palmetto State is famous for. A second phony email surfaced Friday that claimed Gingrich forced his second wife Marianne to undergo an abortion.

An earlier email, distributed widely in South Carolina, appeared to come from CNN. The second one masqueraded as a message from the Gingrich presidential campaign itself.

“Newt Gingrich released the following statement regarding reports that he forced ex-wife Marianne Gingrich to terminate a pregnancy,” the phony email read, followed by a false statement from Gingrich:

I have said many times, including on the debate stage last night, that I am not a perfect human being and I have made mistakes in my life. This was one of them. I have had to apologize to God and to seek reconciliation. The fact is, I am not proud of some decisions I have made or actions I have taken, but I believe in the power of redemption and I trust the voters of South Carolina do as well.

Although Marianne Gingrich publicly claimed Thursday that Gingrich asked her to participate in an “open marriage,” she made no statement about having had an abortion.

Included in the email was the correct contact information of Gingrich press secretary R. C. Hammond.

The email’s graphics included a message claiming that it was “paid for by Newt 2012.” The sender substituted the number “1” in “2012” with a lowercase letter L.

The email originated from the phony Internet domain “newt20l2.org,” which uses the same letter-for-number substitution. The domain was registered shortly after 11 a.m. eastern time on Friday morning, according to records available online. The owner used Domains By Proxy, a division of the Internet registrar GoDaddy that allows anonymous registration and guarantees its customers’ privacy.

The fake email was sent roughly four hours later.

Todd Kincannon, a South Carolina lawyer and former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, received the email at 3:11 p.m. Kincannon told The Daily Caller that he firmly believes the email is a concentrated effort from the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to squelch Gingrich’s surge.

“If I were on a jury, there would be no doubt in my mind that Romney did it,” he said. “I mean, the circumstantial evidence is there. Romney’s the person who’s trying to stop Newt.”

“Ron Paul wouldn’t do it,” Kincannon told TheDC. “Paul wants Newt to win. Paul thinks he’s got a shot at a brokered convention. I don’t think the Santorum people would do it. It’s just not their style. But it is definitely the Romney people’s style.”

At least one media outlet was fooled by the email masquerading as an official campaign message. WBTW News 13 in Myrtle Beach, S.C. filed a brief story about the email Friday afternoon, treating it as serious news. Both the article and a tweet referring to it were deleted within an hour, after the Gingrich campaign staff tweeted, “@WBTWNews13 That statement is categorically false and did not come from our campaign.”

A phony CNN “breaking news” alert about the fake forced-abortion story came earlier in the day, and claimed to rely on “A source close to Marianne Gingrich.”

The latest South Carolina GOP presidential poll, from Clemson University, has Gingrich leading Romney by 6 percentage points, 32–26.

Hammond, the Gingrich spokesperson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Follow Katie on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel