Newt Gingrich's marriage history has been a frequent point of attack for rival GOP presidential contenders. Now court documents obtained by CNN show that Gingrich's claim that his then-wife, Jackie Gingrich, divorced him was a lie.
On July 14, 1980, a divorce complaint was filed by Gingrich that said, "the marriage of the parties is irretriebably [sic] broken." Before to this revelation, Newt's campaign website said that it was Jackie who requested the divorce, not him.
In the documents, Jackie, the mother of his daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman, responded to his request by asking the judge to reject the filing. "Defendant shows that she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce, but that she does not desire one at this time," her petition said.
When the Gingrich campaign was presented with the findings in these documents, it stood by its stance that he did not file for divorce.
"Carroll County Georgia court documents accurately show Newt Gingrich filed for a divorce from his wife Jackie Battley, but it was Jackie Battley who requested the divorce," spokesman R.C. Hammond said in an email to CNN Saturday. "Gingrich, her husband, obtained legal counsel and filed the divorce papers initiating the legal proceedings.
"It was the same legal proceedings that determined and set the amounts of payments Gingrich would provide to support his two daughters," Hammond said.
The past few weeks have been a roller-coaster ride for the three main candidates in the Republican presidential race — Gingrich, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. With only a week until the Iowa caucuses, the smart money has to be on Romney, who has evaded the racist drama that Paul's campaign is confronting and the scattered bits of drama that Gingrich's campaign always seems to stumble upon.
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