House report: Courser, Gamrat guilty of misconduct

LANSING — A special committee is wasting no time in their examination of whether two state representatives who were having an extramarital affair and attempted a clumsy cover-up, are fit to continue serving in the Legislature.

The committee will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday to begin looking at a report released by the House of Representatives Business Office that found that state Reps. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, and Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell, are guilty of misconduct in office through "deceptive, deceitful and outright dishonest" actions. The House Select committee hearings could lead to the expulsion of the two lawmakers.

"I don’t want to see this drag on over the Labor Day holiday. One way or another, we need to get back to work on roads and energy policy and other issues," said state Rep. Kurt Heise, R-Plymouth, one of six members of the committee. "This has clearly been a distraction for us. It’s a black eye for the entire Legislature. It will be more of an organizational meeting tomorrow. It won't be done tomorrow, but certainly by the end of the week."

The scathing report says Courser and Gamrat misused public resources in attempting to cover up their affair and lied to the House Business Office during the investigation.

"Both Rep. Courser and Rep. Gamrat misused their office, their office staff and other state resources for their own political advantage" and to cover up an affair, said the report by House Business Office Director Tim Bowlin.

Neither representative is a credible witness and both "misrepresented themselves on several occasions during their testimony to the business office," the report said. The report said Gamrat wasn't telling the truth when she called a news conference and said she had no role in the bogus e-mail Courser sent out.

The report calls for a special Select Committee that would determine if Courser and Gamrat -- tea party activists who espouse Christian morality and traditional marriage -- are fit to continue serving in the Legislature. The committee can recommend a censure, reprimand, expulsion or nothing at all.

In a seven-page response to the House Business Office report, Courser continued to blame his ex-staffers for conspiring with Republican leadership to get him out of office.

"Is this really now a political hit? Meaning is there a different standard being applied to me due to my lack of support for some of the leadership's progressive steps," Courser wrote, adding that the situation shouldn't rise to an expulsion.

"Why not a fine or a censure," he wrote.

Gamrat could not be reached for comment and did not immediately respond to the report on social media. Andrew Abood, an East Lansing attorney representing Gamrat, did not immediately return a phone call. And Keith Allard and a spokesman for Josh Cline, two of three former staffers in the combined legislative offices of Courser and Gamrat, declined to comment on the report.

Related: Embattled state Rep. Courser says he was blackmailed

The report clears House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, of knowing in advance of the scandal about misuse of House resources. But, the report says that, in hindsight, concerns brought to the attention of former Cotter Chief of Staff Norm Saari by former Courser and Gamrat staffers deserved more investigation than they received.

Cotter said in a news release that Courser and Gamrat "should resign immediately," but since they won't "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."

House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills, said the House should release the entire unedited report, not just the "sanitized" version -- a nine-page summary of the investigation that was first scrutinized by an attorney at Dickinson Wright.

"A lot of this could have been avoided had the Republican Speaker's Office been more responsive and more responsible," said Greimel, who stopped short of calling on Courser and Gamrat to resign, pending the work of the select committee.

While much of the report focuses on efforts to cover up an extramarital affair and the firing of staff members who refused to go along with the cover-up, the report also says Courser asked staff members to use state resources to post Internet ads for his law firm and "had staff that worked part-time at his law firm conduct tasks for the firm while being paid by the House."

And the report says both Courser and Gamrat used House staff to build political databases -- one for a run Courser was considering for a seat in Congress and the other for Gamrat's unsuccessful bid for Republican National Committeewoman. The report also says that Courser and Gamrat required staff members to forge their names on draft bills in order to subvert the efforts of other Republican lawmakers to introduce similar legislation before they did.

"The representatives demanded that their staff know all of the intricacies of legislative work while refusing to learn even the most basic of legislative tasks," the report said. Courser told a staffer: "I do not know the amendment process, nor should I have to," the report said.

Brandon Dillon, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, blasted the report as "a watered-down, 'sanitized' version of the investigative report into a potential criminal cover-up." He renewed his call for an independent investigation led by Attorney General Bill Schuette to "truly get to the bottom of what Speaker Cotter knew and why whistle-blowing staff were allowed to be terminated by his office."

Schuette's office had received the House Business Office report and officials there were reading it late Monday, spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said.

The scandal swirling around Courser and Gamrat had been rumored for months, but burst onto the public scene in early August when audio recordings revealed that Courser had asked his staff to send an anonymous fake e-mail that he had written, saying he was addicted to drugs and pornography and paid for sex with men outside a Lansing bar. His staff refused to participate in the attempt to make it appear that Courser was the victim of a smear campaign and to downplay the affair he was having with Gamrat. But the e-mail still was widely circulated around Lansing.

"While likely not illegal in and of itself, the very sending of the e-mail showed a callous lack of respect and candor to his fellow representatives, constituents, and the public at large," the report said.

Related:Editorial: Embattled legislators Courser and Gamrat must go

Gamrat's claim at an Aug. 14 news conference that she did not help send or author the e-mail and did not know about it in advance is "refuted by both audio recordings and staff testimony," the report said.

"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 report said.

Courser, in audio recordings and Facebook posts, has said he was being blackmailed and that the e-mails were an attempt to smoke out the person who was trying to get him to resign from office or risk having the evidence of the affair released to the public. He has released text messages he says both he and his brother have received from the supposed blackmailer.

He also blamed his former staffers, two of whom were fired in July and a third who quit in April, and the Republican establishment in Lansing for colluding to end his career as a state representative. Gamrat has apologized for the indiscretion and said she didn’t participate in writing or sending the e-mail.

The House report said the so-called blackmail texts were irrelevant to the investigation and had no bearing on the House Business Office findings of misconduct.

Related: Ex-Courser, Gamrat aide rips office hugging, 'tuck-ins'

Both Courser and Gamrat, who are married with children, have resisted calls to resign their seats from fellow lawmakers and constituents in their districts.

The report says Cotter, who ordered the investigation, had no knowledge of misuse of state resources in the lawmakers offices before the scandal broke.

But the report said staff members Keith Allard and Ben Graham reached out to former Cotter chief of staff Norm Saari about the very difficult circumstances they worked in, being asked to perform legislative, political and personal tasks for both lawmakers, the report said.

"While the chief of staff may not have been given specific information or evidence ... to substantiate the employees' concerns, there was reason in hindsight for the House to further inquire into the validity or depth of their claims," the report said.

The report said there is insufficient evidence to support a claim of wrongful termination of Allard or Graham. Both were at-will employees.

But staff members, in addition to being required to perform political work, were required to lie about the whereabouts of Courser and Gamrat when they were together, in order to help hide their extramarital affair, the report said.

Lawmakers named by Cotter to the select committee examining Courser's and Gamrat's qualifications are: Rep. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, who will chair the committee; Rep. Kurt Heise, R-Plymouth Township, vice-chair; Rep. Rob VerHeulen, R-Walker; Rep. Andrea LaFontaine, R-Columbus Township; Rep. John Chirkun, D-Roseville, minority vice-chair; and Rep. Frank Liberati, D-Allen Park.

Release of the report stepped up pressure on the lawmakers to resign.

Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, issued a statement that said "the violation of their oaths of offices is unacceptable and they should immediately resign."

Contact Kathleen Gray: 517-372-8661 or kgray99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @michpoligal