“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion."
By Newt Gingrich
Our nation is faced with the most consequential decisions since the 1860's when President Abraham Lincoln and Congress worked together to save the Union – and government of the people, by the people, and for the people. As an historian, political leader, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and citizen, I want to share with you where I think we are as of September 2023.
The historic investigations by the House Oversight & Accountability Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Ways & Means Committee, and House Administration are beginning to unveil layers of corruption, weaponization of government, and efforts to replace the rule of law with the rule of power.
While Hunter Biden’s laptop has led to a steady increase in our understanding of Biden family corruption and law breaking it is only a small part of what we are learning.
Involving far more than the personal corruption of the Biden family’s criminal behavior, we are faced with a culture and system of law breaking and corrupting the bureaucracies – especially in the intelligence community and the Justice Department – but also in the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies which have been led to replace the law with their own political ideology.
Throughout the federal system, there has been a growing tendency to impose the rule of power and break the rule of law. This threatens the freedom which has been the essence of the American experience.
- Hillary Clinton’s corruption as Secretary of State and the scale of money she collected for the Clinton Foundation dwarfs anything the Bidens have done.
- The weaponization of government came from President Barack Obama long before his understudy, Vice President Joe Biden, ascended to the presidency.
- To focus only on Biden corruption is to fixate on one malignancy when these destructive and dangerous behaviors have metastasized throughout the entire federal government.
Our obligation to the American people, the American Constitution, the rule of law, and to the future of our country is to expose, investigate, and root out the entire system and culture of weaponization and corruption of authority.
House Republicans must dedicate themselves to digging out the truth and sharing it with the American people – wherever it leads, and to whatever elements of government and power it threatens.
This is the greatest crisis of our Constitutional system and the rule of law since the 1850’s. As President Lincoln reminded us in this second report to Congress, December 1862 :
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise – with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”
Lincoln was right then – and he is right now.
We must follow the facts and unearth the truth wherever it leads.
We owe it to our nation.
Newt Gingrich served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Well known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led House Republicans to victory in 1994, he helped create the first conservative majority in the House in 40 years. He was a Republican candidate for president in 2012.
