'I had an affair because I love America', claims presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:06 PM on 10th March 2011
Call it patriotic adultery.
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has claimed that he had an affair with a colleague because his love of country made him work too hard.
The twice-divorced Republican politician was married to his second wife Ginther when he embarked on an affair in the mid-90s with blonde Castilla Bisek, who is 23-years his junior.
Gingrich was at the time an outspoken critic of President Bill Clinton who had a notorious affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monical Lewinsky.
Newt Gingrich the former House speaker talks to his wife at the Republican National Convention in Madison Square Garden, New York, Thursday 02 September 2004. U.S.
Gingrich and his second wife Marianne are seen in 1997. He cheated on Marianne with Callista, the current Mrs. Gingrich
But in an interview yesterday Gingrich - who recently converted to Catholicism - said he had sought God's forgiveness for mistakes in his past.
'There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,' Gingrich told The Christian Broadcasting Network.
'What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them,' he said.
'I found that I felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness.'
Gingrich served divorce papers on his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer.
The Republican hopeful went on in the interview to say that he and his now-third wife Callista have a great marriage.
Originally Posted by Adam Wood
