New Ron Paul ad charges Gingrich with ‘selling access’ to Washington

{mosads}“These are all legitimate and important issues to point out to the American people,” according to Paul’s 2012 campaign chairman Jesse Benton, in a statement released by Paul’s campaign. “If Americans are serious about changing the status quo in Washington, then they must take into account the record of someone who profited from the housing collapse with taxpayers’ money, advocated for Obamacare-style individual mandates, and who played the Washington game of getting rich due to influence as well as anyone.”

Paul on Sunday criticized Gingrich for accepting more than $1 million from Freddie Mac as a consultant. Mitt Romney joined Paul’s criticism on Monday by calling on Gingrich to return the money.

“[Gingrich] was on a debate saying that politicians who took money from Freddie and Fannie should go to jail which is outrageous in itself. He says he was in the consulting business, that’s very different than the consulting business other people have been in. He was in the business of connecting folks with government. He was on K Street. This was a connection with government kind of business. It’s very different than the private sector,” Romney said Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.”

Gingrich has admitted to receiving a consultant fee from the mortgage lender but has denied doing any lobbying on their behalf, and maintains he was working in the private sector. He fired back at Romney later on Monday, saying he would consider returning the consultant fees if Romney returned the money he made “bankrupting companies and laying off employees,” likely a reference to Romney’s past career with private equity firm Bain Capital.

Earlier in the month, as Gingrich began to rocket up in the polls, Paul blasted the former Speaker for “getting a free ride” so far absent a close examination by voters.

“I’ve worked for him for a long time and I think that the points I made on the various issues [show] that he’s a flip-flopper, so he can hardly be an alternative to Mitt Romney,” Paul said.

Gingrich served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, while Paul served in Congress.

Romney’s presidential campaign also launched an anti-Gingrich website on Monday called unreliableleader.com. In an email, the campaign offered a reminder that Gingrich once worked with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “while conservatives were fighting job-killing cap-and-trade schemes.” Gingrich and Pelosi “shared a loveseat” making a video urging action on global warming in 2008, Romney’s communications director Gail Gitcho noted Monday.

Gingrich called the ad “probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years” last month.