Gingrich Account of First Divorce Disputed by Aides, Documents

A Bill Clinton kinda guy

“Newt Gingrich, who hoped to put his personal past behind him by saying he’d made mistakes, has revived the issue with questionable claims about the details of his first divorce.

The Republican presidential candidate insists that it was his then-wife, Jackie Battley Gingrich, who sought a divorce in 1980. After court records showed he filed the action, the Gingrich campaign said he’d done so at her request. Court documents, Gingrich’s own previous explanations and the recollections of two former Gingrich aides refute his current claim.

“It’s totally untrue that she wanted the divorce, and Newt knows that,” Dot Crews, who worked in the former Georgia congressman’s office from 1979 to 1984, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Crews, 80, recalled Gingrich confiding during a car ride in his home district that he’d decided to file for divorce.

“He talks about redemption, and then he lies like this?” Crews said.

Much more @ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-27/gingrich-account-of-divorce-disputed-by-aides.html