The Pornographer Who Didn't Bark
So, Newt Gingrich has been having an affair with congressional aide Callista
Bisek for six years--since before the Republican Revolution of 1994. Why didn't
Larry Flynt tell us about it when it mattered? You remember: Flynt, the
pornographer, and his crack team of snoops were going to blast the lid off the
hypocritical Republican Congress that was trying to impeach a president over
sex, etc. Flynt offered up to $1 million in reward money. Yet here one of
Flynt's juiciest potential targets was cheating, and Flynt didn't blow his
cover.
Did Flynt fail to find out about Gingrich and Bisek? No, according to Allan
MacDonell, executive editor of Flynt's Hustler magazine. MacDonell told
kausfiles that "we had some information" on Gingrich--indeed,
Hustler had compiled a "good dossier" on the speaker before he resigned
his office after the Nov. 1998 elections. Did that dossier include the Bisek
matter? "Yes." So why didn't Flynt expose the affair? "We were holding back."
Why hold back? MacDonell said that Bisek was a "private" citizen, which caused
some concern, but also that Hustler "wanted to see what Gingrich was
going to do next as far as his career was concerned."
Hmmm. In early 1999, while the Clinton impeachment was pending before the
Senate, Republicans charged that Flynt was blackmailing anti-Clinton
congressmen. This came after Flynt's investigator, Dan Moldea, told the
Washington Times, "We have a lot of these guys, dead bang, and the
evidence is clear. But they haven't been going on TV, or on the floor of
Congress, shooting their mouths off, trying to take the moral high ground
against Clinton. And as a consequence, we're throwing it back in the river." If
a Republican "hasn't been shooting his mouth off," Moldea said, "we let him
go."
And, come to think of it, Gingrich was kind of uncharacteristically
quiet during the impeachment mess, wasn't he? ...
Did Gingrich know Flynt had the goods on him? "We never contacted him," says
MacDonell, though he concedes Gingrich "could have known." MacDonell says
Hustler 's concern was getting maximum publicity and sales for
Hustler , not necessarily making Gingrich behave. "We were going to wait
until the disclosure would do us the most benefit." If Gingrich had come out in
a high-profile way and denounced Clinton's sexual immorality, would Flynt have
dropped the bomb then? "That was kind of our idea." What if Newt hadn't
resigned after his 1998 election losses, and instead had resolved to seek
another term as House speaker--would Flynt then have tried to bring him down?
"Not necessarily," says MacDonell. "We weren't that concerned with bringing
down anybody. We wanted to do the most for [ourselves]."
So was Gingrich effectively (if not illegally) blackmailed? You, the reader,
be the judge! I tend to believe MacDonell's claim of pure, publicity-seeking
self-interest. But that doesn't mean Gingrich's behavior wasn't affected by
knowledge that Flynt, or someone like him, knew about Bisek and might blow the
whistle. Intentionally or not, Flynt served Clinton well.
Flynt would probably agree. Last spring, after Clinton's impeachment trial
was over--and months after Gingrich resigned--he finally published his
long-awaited (and disappointing) Flynt Report. It did allude to the
Bisek matter, saying: "Rumors of an ongoing affair between the remarried Newt
Gingrich and a female staff member of then-Congressman Steve Gunderson
(R-Wisconsin)* reached HUSTLER from more than one inside source. Maybe this
whiff of fresh scandal was the deciding factor in Newt's abrupt withdrawal from
the mud fight." And, Flynt might have added, in determining Newt's fighting
style during the previous months.
Gingrich's press spokesman, Michael Shields, declined to comment on this
story when contacted by kausfiles .
* In 1993, when her romance with the speaker apparently began, Bisek was
an aide to Gunderson.
