NBC's Lauer Hypes Pelosi's Non-Existent Charges Against Gingrich As 'Pretty Alarming'

January 26th, 2012 11:33 AM

Despite the fact that Nancy Pelosi has failed to produce any evidence to back up her claim that she "knows something" about Newt Gingrich that would end his candidacy, on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer still touted her unfounded remarks: "...she makes this comment saying, 'Newt Gingrich will not be president, there's something I know.' Now that in itself sounds pretty alarming."  

Talking to special correspondent Tom Brokaw, Lauer suggested Pelosi must have some really damaging information that needs to be made public: "Clearly, she's hinting that she learned something that will make, will disqualify him as president. Does she have the right to back out now and back off of that?"

He noted how: "She said in an interview in December....'I know a lot about him....I served on the investigative committee that investigated him....A thousand pages of his stuff.'"

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Brokaw agreed that Pelosi should unleash the supposed bombshell: "Well, I think that she should come clean with the public. If she found out something in the course of that investigation that she's holding, and it appears for political purposes, that's outrageous. I think that the Speaker has a reason to be very unhappy about that....Speaker Gingrich."

At the same time, Brokaw did acknowledge that Pelosi may just be trying to dredge up old news about Gingrich: "If she doesn't know something, I think that she has to say, 'Look, I didn't learn anything in there that the public didn't learn. I'm just talking about what the evidence was and we think that that is enough to disqualify him for the presidency.'"

Brokaw concluded that she should just release all of the privileged knowledge she gained from the confidential congressional investigation: "But I think she has to go a lot farther than she has so far in terms of her role in that investigation, what she may have learned in those closed-door meetings and going through all of those files."

Read the complete transcript of the January 26 exchange.