$1M in second Gingrich Tiffany credit line

WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) -- Republican U.S. presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich had a second line of credit for as much as $1 million at high-end jeweler Tiffany & Co., his campaign said.

The former U.S. House speaker's recently filed personal financial disclosure filing, required within 30 days of his formal entrance into the presidential race, will show that Gingrich and his wife, Callista, "had a $500,000 to $1 million line of credit at Tiffany's, that it has a zero balance, and it has been closed," spokesman Joe DeSantis told The Washington Post, as the campaign also announced the resignation of two top Gingrich campaign fundraisers.

Fundraising Director Jody Thomas and campaign consultant Mary Heitman were the latest casualties in a series of staff departures, marked most notably by the en masse resignation of 16 senior staff members June 9. Those resignations included Gingrich's campaign manager, chief strategist and key operatives in Iowa and South Carolina.

DeSantis told the Post all debts to Tiffany had been paid in full. He gave no details about when the second credit line was taken out, what it was used for or when it was closed, the Post said.

Callista Gingrich indicated in a personal financial disclosure in mid-May the couple carried a $250,000 to $500,000 Tiffany credit line in 2005 and 2006.

Newt Gingrich, named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1995 for leading 1994's so-called Republican revolution that ended 40 years of Democratic House rule, has been on the phone in recent days trying to raise money, campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond told The New York Times.

Two sources familiar with Gingrich's operation told the Post the campaign was in debt by $800,000 to $1 million. Newt Gingrich has no plans to exit the race, Hammond said.

He was expected to deliver remarks critical of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta Wednesday and to join a Tea Party bus tour in Iowa Saturday.