Guardian
Ed Pilkington
The actor at the centre of Newt's mid-90s tax scandal watches the former speaker's resurrection with amazement and disgust
Ed Pilkington
The actor at the centre of Newt's mid-90s tax scandal watches the former speaker's resurrection with amazement and disgust
As Newt Gingrich fights to save his political life, locked in a potentially decisive battle in the final days of the Florida primary with his bitter rival Mitt Romney, one man is following the struggle with peculiarly intense and personal interest.
Ben Jones is best known by millions of Americans as the actor who played "Crazy" Cooter Davenport, the truck driving mechanic in the hit 1980s TV series, The Dukes of Hazzard. But in politics, Jones is credited with having helped destroy Newt Gingrich's Congressional career by leveling accusations of financial improprieties at him, which ultimately led to his resignation from the speakership.
Jones has watched the improbable resurrection of Gingrich as a presidential contender almost two decades later with a mixture of bemusement and disgust. "It's astonishing to me that this has come back around. It testifies to the fact that Mr Gingrich cannot be destroyed by conventional weapons – he is the abominable Newt Man."
Jones sounded the alarm about Gingrich's dodgy practices in September 1994 at a time when he was locked in his own bitter electoral battle with the speaker over a Congressional seat in Georgia. Jones, who by then had served two terms in Congress as a Democratic member having turned to politics after Dukes of Hazzard went off the air, presented the House ethics committee with 450 pages of documents that proved to be incendiary.
They revealed that Gingrich had used charitable donations that were tax-deductible to fund his own political ambitions to launch a conservative revolution in America – a violation of the law that does not allow political activities to be written off against tax.
Over the next three years, his activities were investigated by the ethics committee which discovered that Gingrich had not only committed the tax violation but had misled the committee about what he had done – thus bringing discredit on the House.
The result was a historic $300,000 fine and reprimand by Congress. The blow to Gingrich's standing proved terminal – he failed to be returned by fellow Republicans as Speaker and would quit Congress in 1998.
Jones still has a box of papers relating to the Gingrich ethics investigation gathering dust in his garage. The events of the past few weeks – with Gingrich making a surprise surge to win the South Carolina primary, only to be bombarded with accusations about his unethical past in Florida – has brought the memory of 1994 flooding back.
"It was there in black and white. The documents showed that what he had done was a tax dodge – it was chicanery and it was illegal under tax law."
Jones, 70, thinks that despite the passage of so much time, the contents of that box are still highly relevant. "It shows that what he did was wrong. And it exemplifies the way that he operated then, and operates still."
Ben Jones is best known by millions of Americans as the actor who played "Crazy" Cooter Davenport, the truck driving mechanic in the hit 1980s TV series, The Dukes of Hazzard. But in politics, Jones is credited with having helped destroy Newt Gingrich's Congressional career by leveling accusations of financial improprieties at him, which ultimately led to his resignation from the speakership.
Jones has watched the improbable resurrection of Gingrich as a presidential contender almost two decades later with a mixture of bemusement and disgust. "It's astonishing to me that this has come back around. It testifies to the fact that Mr Gingrich cannot be destroyed by conventional weapons – he is the abominable Newt Man."
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| Ben Jones |
They revealed that Gingrich had used charitable donations that were tax-deductible to fund his own political ambitions to launch a conservative revolution in America – a violation of the law that does not allow political activities to be written off against tax.
Over the next three years, his activities were investigated by the ethics committee which discovered that Gingrich had not only committed the tax violation but had misled the committee about what he had done – thus bringing discredit on the House.
The result was a historic $300,000 fine and reprimand by Congress. The blow to Gingrich's standing proved terminal – he failed to be returned by fellow Republicans as Speaker and would quit Congress in 1998.
Jones still has a box of papers relating to the Gingrich ethics investigation gathering dust in his garage. The events of the past few weeks – with Gingrich making a surprise surge to win the South Carolina primary, only to be bombarded with accusations about his unethical past in Florida – has brought the memory of 1994 flooding back.
"It was there in black and white. The documents showed that what he had done was a tax dodge – it was chicanery and it was illegal under tax law."
Jones, 70, thinks that despite the passage of so much time, the contents of that box are still highly relevant. "It shows that what he did was wrong. And it exemplifies the way that he operated then, and operates still."
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