Two Michigan lawmakers embroiled in a scandal involving an affair and a fake prostitution email both abused their office for personal and political reasons, a newly concluded investigation found.
The Michigan House Business Office released a report Monday detailing its findings on Michigan Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, recommending both be investigated further by a House special committee.
“The evidence demonstrates numerous instances of deceptive, deceitful and outright dishonest conduct by both representatives,” the report found.
The Michigan House Speaker requested the investigation last month after a local news outlet reported Courser personally wrote an email from a pseudonym alleging he paid for sex with a male prostitute that was sent around the House. The email was apparently designed to try to cover up an affair Courser was having with Gamrat.
Courser later confessed to authoring the email in a lengthy, rambling audio file he posted on the Web.
Gamrat broke her silence weeks later, delivering a tearful apology to the public and denying she had any knowledge of the email plot.
That was a lie, the House report alleges. Citing testimony from some of Gamrat and Courser’s former employees as well as audio files, the report found Gamrat was aware of an attempt by Courser to convince a staffer to send the email before he did it himself.
“Such dishonesty, particularly in statements made to the public and as part of an official investigation, constitutes conduct that is unbecoming of a state legislator,” the investigators wrote.
After the report was released, Michigan House Speaker Kevin Cotter called on the pair to step down.
“The Business Office found several examples of misconduct that are wholly inappropriate for a sitting lawmaker,” Cotter said in a statement. “Out of respect for the office, Reps. Courser and Gamrat should resign immediately. But because these two will not do the right thing for their constituents, for their families and for the House, we will now move forward with a select committee to examine their qualifications.”
Courser, Gamrat and Cotter are Republicans. Neither Courser nor Gamrat responded to a request for comment on the report.
The investigators stopped short of finding that Gamrat and Courser improperly terminated two employees, Keith Allard and Ben Graham, or that they created a hostile work environment. But they said that was because those findings require a high bar for evidence, and there simply wasn’t enough of it in this case.
Regardless, Courser and Gamrat repeatedly used their staff and state resources to conduct political business, the report found. They also misused state resources for personal reasons, including having their staff lie about their whereabouts to help them cover up their affair.
The report also seemed to take offense to the lawmakers’ treatment of their constituents, noting that Courser was recorded disparaging voters and discussing a need to “inoculate the herd.”
Still unresolved is who sent Gamrat and Courser text messages about exposing their affair. Courser said in his online statement that the persistent blackmail attempts were what drove him to send the prostitution email, and that he is still trying to suss out who is behind the communications.
The report said the relevance of the so-called burner phone used to send the text messages, and who was behind them, remains a “confusing and unresolved issue,” but that it is not relevant to the investigation into whether the lawmakers abused their office for personal and political reasons.
The investigations said they do not believe the blackmailer is a House employee or used House resources or time to send the messages.