Gingrich acknowledges Freddie Mac consulting fees (Reuters)

URBANDALE, Iowa (Reuters) ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich acknowledged Wednesday that he had received consulting fees from troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac for providing "strategic advice."

Campaigning in Iowa, Gingrich said he did not believe he was contracted by the government-owned housing finance giant as a friendly voice who would avoid criticizing it.

"I was approached. I was glad to offer strategic advice and we did it for a number of companies and Gingrich Group was very successful," he told reporters.

He was reacting to a Bloomberg News story that said he had been paid between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts with Freddie Mac.

The story said Gingrich's first contract with Freddie Mac began five months after he resigned in 1999 from Congress and as speaker of the House of Representatives. His last contract ended in 2008, it said.

Both Freddie Mac and its related entity, Fannie Mae, have become unpopular amid the country's ongoing housing crisis. The two loss-making firms have been propped up by about $169 billion in federal aid since they were rescued by the government in 2008.

Gingrich has been rising in polls of Republican voters in recent weeks as the conservative alternative to the more moderate Mitt Romney.

He stands a chance of winning Iowa, which on January 3 holds the first U.S. nominating contest in the race to decide the 2012 Republican presidential nominee against Democratic President Barack Obama.

Gingrich said his advice to Freddie Mac was about ways to expand housing opportunities for people "whether they're African American, or Latino or of any background."

Gingrich has a long history as a Washington insider. He said his knowledge of the ways of Washington would set him apart from Obama.

"It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington and if you want to change Washington, we just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn't work very well, so having somebody who knows Washington might be a really good thing," he said.

(Writing by Steve Holland; editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111116/pl_nm/us_usa_campaign_gingrich

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