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Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul put front-runner Newt Gingrich on defense early into Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, attacking him for, as Bachmann put it, “influence
peddling” when he received $1.6 million in consulting fees from mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The exchange forced Gingrich to do something that’s unlikely to endear him to the more
conservative of Republican primary voters: He defended government programs and said he advocated for “more regulations” for the government-sponsored mortgage companies. “There are a lot of
government-sponsored enterprises that are awfully important and do an awfully good job,” Gingrich said, naming credit unions and programs like Habitat for Humanity. But despite mounting a
defense that acknowledged that Freddie Mac is a quasi-governmental entity, Gingrich insisted that his consulting work was purely private. “I was a private citizen, engaged in a business like
any other business,” Gingrich said. That irritated Texas Rep. Ron Paul. “He has a different definition of the private sector than I have,” Paul said, then went on to argue that
government-sponsored enterprises are dangerous. Gingrich accused Minnesota Congresswoman Bachmann of making “wild accusations” when she said, “We know he cashed paychecks from Freddie Mac;
that’s the best evidence you could have” that he was lobbying for the mortgage giant. “I never lobbied under any circumstance,” Gingrich said. Bachmann fired back: “You don’t need to be
within the technical definition of a lobbyist to still be influence peddling.” MORE TO READ