For roughly six years, Newt Gingrich worked closely with high-level officials at the government-sponsored mortgage company Freddie Mac. As a highly paid consultant, he coached them on how to win over the conservatives who consider their company an anathema, spoke to their political action committee and offered general advice as they worked to stave off various threats to Freddie Mac's survival, several people familiar with his role there said Wednesday.

The full extent of Gingrich's involvement with Freddie Mac burst into the open after Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that he earned $1.6 million to $1.8 million, in an on-and-off relationship from 1999 to 2008, with the mortgage company that has since been taken over by the federal government. The payments were far more than had previously been known, or than Gingrich, the former House speaker, had previously acknowledged.

His compensation, which several former Freddie Mac officials confirmed in interviews Wednesday, and the extent of his work with the mortgage company, presented Gingrich with a fresh challenge to his Republican bid for the presidency just as he was climbing in polls and gaining traction as a possible challenger to the party's presumed front-runner, Mitt Romney.

Not only is Freddie Mac a longtime conservative whipping post, but the extent of his consultancy for the mortgage giant seemed to be at odds with his own statements about his work there. He has also blamed it for the collapse of the housing market, saying that at least one Democratic supporter should be jailed, and, in 2008, that President Barack Obama should give back any money his campaign received from its executives.

The news of the full extent of his Freddie Mac contract put him on the defensive all day. And all of his corporate work, in energy, health care and other industries, is now sure to be scrutinized.

"Fannie and Freddie, as you know, have been the epicenter of the financial meltdown in this country," said Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, while campaigning in Iowa. "While he was taking that money, I was fighting against Fannie and Freddie."

Speaking with reporters in Iowa on Wednesday, Gingrich played down the report, saying that he did not know exactly how much he was paid, and that Freddie Mac was but one company that enlisted his firm, the Gingrich Group.

In interviews Wednesday, several former Freddie Mac officials and others with direct knowledge about his work there did not dispute that. But at least four of them did dispute Gingrich's own description of his work for Freddie Mac during the CNBC debate last week. When asked about a $300,000-per-year, two-year contract in 2006 and 2007, Gingrich said he had acted as a "historian." He said Freddie officials had come to ask his advice, as a historian, telling him, "We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that's what the government wants us to do."

And, he explained: "As I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane."

Five officials with knowledge of his interactions, and speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid getting drawn into a public fight with him, said they had never heard of him saying any such thing.

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