The Bitch is Loose

(Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks at a town hall meeting on December 3, 2011 in the Staten Island borough of New York City.) Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich fired back at Nancy Pelosi on Monday after the Democrat suggested that she had a "thousand pages" of potential dirt on the GOP candidate, presumably from her time on a House ethics panel that investigated Gingrich when he was the House speaker.

The Hill has the details from Gingrich's New York presser, where the Republican called Pelosi's comments "an early Christmas gift":

"Gingrich denounced the threat from Pelosi, who is now the minority leader in the House, as 'a fundamental violation of the rules of the House,' and said that if Pelosi were to disclose details of the investigation, it would expose the 'tainted ethics process the House was engaged in.' He also called for the House to condemn Pelosi if she were to reveal anything from the ethics probe."

A Pelosi spokesman told the Beltway publication that Pelosi wasn't threatening to go public with anything that isn't already out there, saying she was "clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware."

Monday, Dec. 5: Based on recent poll numbers, a growing number of likely Republican voters are hoping Newt Gingrich secures his party's presidential nomination. Based on some recent comments by top Democrats, they are pretty happy with the idea themselves.

The House's top Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, had this to say in a recent interview with the Talking Points Memo: "I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said 'I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party,'" the former House speaker said Friday. "That quote I think spoke for a lot of us."

Pelosi remained mostly mum on the details, but she certainly offered a pretty strong hint that she has some dirt on Gingrich, who himself held the speaker's gavel at one time. "One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said. "I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff."

Pressed for more info, Pelosi said that she'd provide it "when the time's right."