As Rick Scott’s Role in Company Fraud Detailed, Newt Gingrich Returns Favor for Bill McCollum’s Attempted Cover-Up NEWS FROM THE FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
For Immediate Release: June 28, 2010
GOP Primary Candidates’ Dirty Deeds Break Into the Open
As Rick Scott’s Role in Company Fraud Detailed, Newt Gingrich Returns Favor for Bill McCollum’s Attempted Cover-Up
The last few days have revealed to Floridians just how ethically challenged both Republican candidates for Governor really are — with in-depth reporting on Rick Scott’s connection to fraud at his former company and a Bill McCollum endorsement from Newt Gingrich, after McCollum voted to protect Gingrich from a special Congressional investigation.
“Rick Scott tries to avoid taking responsibility for his dirty deeds, while Bill McCollum spends his time sweeping other people’s dirt under the rug,” said Eric Jotkoff, spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party.  “Whether it’s shady business practices or efforts to keep Republican scandals in the shadows, Rick Scott and Bill McCollum couldn’t be more ethically challenged.”
First, the Herald/Times outlined in painstaking detail an in-depth account of Rick Scott’s ties to Columbia/HCA’s historic and systematic Medicare fraud, reporting that, “Federal investigators found that Scott took part in business practices at Columbia/HCA that were later found to be illegal.” (Times/Herald, 6/27/10)
Then today former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who admitted to ethics violations to the House Ethics Committee, endorsed career politician Bill McCollum.  In 1995, McCollum voted to kill an “attempt to force a public report on an ethics committee inquiry into” Gingrich’s activities. And then in 1996, McCollum voted to protect Gingrich from an “effort to order the House ethics committee to turn over its entire investigation” to outside counsel. (CQ, Vote 833, 11/30/95; CQ, Vote 287, 6/27/96 and Associated Press, 6/28/96)
“Just like Bill McCollum may have tried to cover-up the scandals at the Republican Party of Florida, in Congress he voted to protect Newt Gingrich from greater public scrutiny and stronger ethics investigations — no wonder Newt Gingrich returned the favor today,” Jotkoff added.
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