Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich (; né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th Speaker of the United St...
Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich (; né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 6th congressional district serving north Atlanta and nearby areas from 1979 until his resignation in 1999. In 2012, Gingrich unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
A professor of history and geography at the University of West Georgia in the 1970s, Gingrich won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1978, the first Republican in the history of Georgia's 6th congressional district to do so. He served as House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995. A co-author and architect of the "Contract with America", Gingrich was a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional election. In 1995, Time named him "Man of the Year" for "his role in ending the four-decades-long Democratic majority in the House".As House Speaker, Gingrich oversaw passage by the House of welfare reform and a capital gains tax cut in 1997. Gingrich played a key role in several government shutdowns, and impeached President Clinton on a party-line vote in the House. The poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 Congressional elections, a reprimand from the House for Gingrich's ethics violation, pressure from Republican colleagues, and revelations of an extramarital affair with a congressional employee 23 years his junior resulted in Gingrich's resignation from the speakership on November 6, 1998. He resigned altogether from the House on January 3, 1999. Political scientists have credited Gingrich with playing a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States and hastening political polarization and partisanship.Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and worked as a political consultant. He founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation. Gingrich ran for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 presidential election, and was considered a potential frontrunner at several points in the race. Despite an impressive late victory in the South Carolina primary, Gingrich was ultimately unable to win enough primaries to sustain a viable candidacy, he withdrew from the race in May 2012 and endorsed eventual nominee Mitt Romney. Gingrich later emerged as a key ally of Donald Trump, and was reportedly among the finalists on Trump's short list for running mate in the 2016 election.
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Trey Gowdy
Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is an American television news personality, former politician, and former federal prosecutor who...
Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is an American television news personality, former politician, and former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019. His district included much of the Upstate region of South Carolina, including Greenville and Spartanburg.
Before his congressional career, Gowdy served as a federal prosecutor in the District of South Carolina from 1994 to 2000 and then as the solicitor (district attorney) for South Carolina's Seventh Judicial Circuit, comprising Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, from 2000 to 2010. From 2014 to 2016, Gowdy chaired the United States House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi which was partly responsible for discovering the existence of Hillary Clinton's private email server. His investigative committee spent over two and a half years and $7.8 million investigating the events surrounding the 2012 Benghazi attack, ultimately finding no evidence of specific wrong-doing by then-Secretary of State Clinton. Gowdy pressed for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. From 2017, he chaired the House Oversight Committee.
On January 31, 2018, Gowdy announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018 and that he intended to pursue a legal career instead of politics. He has since joined the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, and also joined Fox News as a contributor.
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