WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says his consulting group never lobbied for clients. But his business hired state and federal lobbyists to work with clients, and some staff left to take lobbying jobs, according to lobbying disclosures and corporate reports.
Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation hired a former Georgia lobbyist to help develop business in that state; a former Missouri state agency director who was a registered lobbyist before joining Gingrich’s group; and a Washington lobbyist hired from a firm led by former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, a Gingrich supporter.
Gingrich’s center also paved the way for some employees to leave for lobbying jobs, turning their experience with his group into a selling point for clients. One former vice president started his own Washington lobbying firm, attracting clients also represented by Gingrich’s organization. Two other center employees left to manage Washington lobbying operations for trade associations.
Gingrich’s consulting business has been the focus of claims by Republican rival Mitt Romney, who paints the former House speaker as a Washington insider who peddled the influence he acquired in Congress to hundreds of corporate clients after he left the House in 1999. Gingrich stressed that he was not lobbying when he created his
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