Some fellow Michigan House members say they will vote to expel Courser and Gamrat if they don’t resign. It focused on audio recordings by a Courser staffer where the lawmaker lays out a plan to send a message to smear himself with tales of drinking, drugs, and same-sex hook-ups to cloud over his affair with state Rep. Cindy Gamrat (R-Plainwell) if and when the relationship became public. It allowed him, Courser claims, to implicate one of his closest House aides and several close friends and political associates in the blackmail plot.
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In his tape, the lawmaker described that as an “easy road” he would not travel since, “I felt no calling from God to move that way”.
Courser and Gamrat, both Christian conservatives, tried to get their taxpayer-funded staffers to send out a bogus email claiming Courser was busted in a gay sex scandal in an attempt to cover up their extramarital affair, which was the worst kept secret in Lansing.
Hey! Remember that needlessly complicated-seeming scandal from last week about the Tea Party State Rep. from Michigan?
Courser posted a rambling, 27-minute audio statement on the internet where he acknowledged being a “broken messenger” (using the phrase multiple times), but blamed the “Republican establishment” for trying to bring him down.
In the statement released Monday, Courser does not deny any of the Detroit News article, instead saying he wanted to tell his side of the story, adding he “owe[d]” it to everyone to hear it in his “own words”. The aides, Keith Allard, Ben Graham and Josh Kline, said Monday “there is absolutely no truth” to Courser’s accusations. He avoided 7 Investigator Jim Kiertzner who tried to ask him questions outside of Courser’s Lapeer law office this afternoon. Officials said they don’t know how long the investigation will take. Progress Michigan head Lonnie Scott says while he respects the man the House GOP Speaker tapped to do the probe, given “the gravity of the situation and the allegations which have been made, this investigation should not be handled internally”.
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House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel has called on the AG to investigate. Courser said a former staffer told him that he had been working with Cotter’s office to “monitor us for some time”. “Unfortunately that’s all he’s got to fall back on”.
