Gingrich campaign insists no lobbying on behalf of Freddie Mac

Newt Gingrich's campaign is pushing back against criticism that the former Speaker consulted with embattled mortgage lender Freddie Mac, insisting that Gingrich did not lobby on behalf of the government corporation.

Gingrich was pressed on the ties during Wednesday evening's Republican debate — the Speaker was paid $300,000 in 2006 — but insisted that he only met with Freddie in his capacity as a historian, not as a lobbyist.

"I have never done any lobbying," Gingrich said. "Every contract was written during the period when I was out of the office, specifically said I would do no lobbying, and I offered advice."

Gingrich went on to say that he had told the corporation that its lending practices — famously loosened to enable those without established or ideal credit histories to buy homes — would be disastrous.

"My advice as a historian, when they walked in and said to me, 'We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that’s what the government wants us to do,' as I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible," Gingrich said.

But critics have attacked Gingrich's response, saying that it seems unlikely that the mortgage giant would pay Gingirch hundreds of thousands of dollars for advice it had no plan to use. Critics have cited a 2008 article by The Associated Press that chronicles "a well-orchestrated, multimillion-dollar campaign to preserve its largely regulatory-free environment, with particular pressure exerted on Republicans who controlled Congress at the time."

In that article, the AP said that Gingrich was paid to write and talk "about what he saw as the benefits of the Freddie Mac business model."

But Gingrich's campaign vehemently denied those charges, insisting Gingrich did no lobbying on Freddie's behalf.

"Speaker Gingrich did no lobbying of any kind, nor did his firm. This was expressly written into the Gingrich Group contracts," the campaign said in a statement to NBC.

The campaign also doubled down on Gingrich's claim that he foresaw the financial crisis.

"Gingrich advised that a business model that involved lending money to people with bad credit and no money down was unsustainable and a bubble, and that it was dangerous to buy securities made up of these mortgages," the statement said.

Gingrich has become increasingly relevant in the past few weeks, as nearly every other Republican opponent — with the exception of Mitt Romney — has lost at least some ground in the polls. Gingrich placed third in both the USA Today/Gallup and NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls released earlier this month.

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