WASHINGTON -- An angry Newt Gingrich lashed out at questions about his wife's employment yesterday, saying his critics would see a conflict of interest "in everything that my wife or I do the rest of our lives."
"I think my record of being investigated, scrutinized, smeared and attacked sort of rivals anybody in recent public life," the House speaker said at his regular news conference yesterday.
The speaker's wife, Marianne Gingrich, was hired in September by a private company owned by American businessmen who are trying to create a free-trade zone in Israel.
As vice president for business development, she is being paid $2,500 a month, plus commissions, for any companies she recruits for the zone, a tax-free, high-tech business park.
"Why are wives being drawn into this?" Mr. Gingrich asked. "I've had nothing to do with the company she works for. She does no lobbying with the U.S. government and no lobbying with the Congress."
Because no taxpayer money is involved, Mr. Gingrich said, "she ought to be let alone."
Mrs. Gingrich was hired by the Israel Export Development Co., based in Jerusalem. Having spent two years pressing the Israeli government to establish the free-trade zone, IEDC is now trying to win the government's approval to manage it.
Company officials have said that Mrs. Gingrich was hired because of her interest in free-market concepts. But they have also acknowledged that she got the job because of her contacts in the business and political arenas.
Questions could be raised about the propriety of the job because the Israeli government is highly dependent on U.S. foreign aid and, as House speaker, Mr. Gingrich is in a position to affect U.S. policy toward Israel.
But Mr. Gingrich bristled at suggestions that his wife had been hired not because of her experience but because of her husband's position of influence.
"She has a job-development background," he said. "This is about developing jobs."
Through her 14-year marriage to the Georgia Republican, Mrs. Gingrich worked off and on in his re-election campaigns and related political pursuits, and obtained a bachelor's degree at Georgia State College. She also worked part time at a department store in Atlanta.
In 1981, the year she married Mr. Gingrich, she worked briefly in the personnel office of the Secret Service in Washington.
Before that, she worked for several years in her native eastern Ohio for county and regional planning agencies, directing the Trumbull County planning commission for a year and a half in the late 1970s, and for a real estate agency.
Mr. Gingrich acknowledged that he has promoted the free-trade-zone idea to "every Israeli official I've seen."
But he said he did not recommend any particular company and noted that he has been an advocate of the idea for his entire career.
Referring to questions about his wife's job, and other ethical issues that have plagued the speaker -- some of which are being taken up by the House ethics committee -- Mr. Gingrich said he viewed them as an effort by "tax-and-spend liberals" to put him through "Chinese water torture."