to this federal housing agency. freddie mac. as mr. gingrich has had his recent upward thrust in the polls, pretty much every day has started with a new revelation about how exactly newt gingrich makes all of his money. the freddie mac thing that is referenced here, by the redirected explorenewt2012, the freddie mac thing came to light last week when asked at the cnbc debate about having taken $300,000 from the federal housing agency freddie mac. mr. gingrich previously criticized freddie mac as being responsible for the financial meltdown. he described it as essentially a corrupting thing. he piously demanded politicians who got money from freddie mac should be forced to give that money back. so newt, himself, taking 300 grand from them was kind of a scandal. kind of a do as i say, not as i do hypocrisy moment. and also an interesting window into how he makes his money. since then, it's emerged that it wasn't actually $300,000 that newt gingrich got from freddie mac, it was more like $1.6