Little known to the American public Newt Gingrich and his then wife Marianne were the subject of a US Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s involving a $10 million bribe of the world’s largest private arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalia.
Unaware that Soghanalian was an FBI informant, it is alleged that Marianne Gingrich whilst working for the Israel Export Development Corporation (IEDC) tried to facilitate a bribe to the tune of $10 million so that her husband could use his influence to lift the arms embargo against Iraq in order for Soghanalian to collect an outstanding payment of $54 million from Saddam Hussein.