“And I just stared at him, and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,”‘ Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage, and I refused.”
By SHANNON MCCAFFREY
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Thursday angrily denied that he asked his second wife for an “open marriage” that would allow him to have a mistress as she claims in an interview broadcast two days before the South Carolina primary.
“Let me be quite clear. The story is false,” Gingrich said at a debate, without elaborating.
At the same time, his campaign released his tax returns, showing that he paid more than $994,000 in federal taxes on more $3.1 million in income in 2010.
It was a day of ups and downs for Gingrich, who picked up the endorsement for former rival Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former House speaker is working to consolidate the support of conservatives behind his candidacy with polls showing him rising in his bid to overtake Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.
“Newt is not perfect but who among us is,” Perry said as he bowed out of the race, seeking to provide Gingrich with some political cover in a state filled with evangelicals likely to cringe at Gingrich’s two divorces and acknowledged infidelity.
Gingrich’s ex-wife threatened to throw his campaign off course.
In excerpts the network released earlier in the day, Marianne Gingrich told ABC News in an interview being broadcast late Thursday that when she discovered Gingrich was having an affair with Callista Bisek, a congressional staffer, he asked his wife to share him.
“And I just stared at him, and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,”‘ Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage, and I refused.”