State Rep. Planted Gay Sex Scandal to Hide Relationship With Tea Partier
If you’re a conservative state representative having an affair with a colleague, you have a few options. You could fess up, you could keep lying, or, if you’re Michigan State Rep. Todd Courser, you could allegedly try to plant a fake male prostitution story about yourself to deflect attention from your relationship with fellow Tea Party “gladiator” Rep. Cindy Gamrat, news of which you fear is about to break.
The Detroit News reports that, according to secretly recorded audio, Courser asked an aide to send an anonymous mass email to hundreds of influential Michigan Republicans claiming that Courser was caught having sex with a man behind a club in Lansing. Unfortunately for Courser, the aide, Ben Graham, recorded the conversation and later released it to the News.
“It will make anything else that comes out after that — that isn’t a video — mundane, tame by comparison,” Courser said in the recording. “I need a controlled burn.”
In two recordings, according to the News, neither Gamrat nor Courser corrected Graham when he described their relationship as an extramarital affair, though neither explicitly confirmed or denied it.
After learning of the scheme during a meeting the night of May 19, Graham asked for more time to decide. An hour later, he responded to Courser’s texts, saying he wouldn’t participate. From the Detroit News:
The meeting ended at about midnight and he left the law office, Graham said. An hour later, Courser asked for an answer in a text message to Graham, which he released to The News.
“If you see another way then let me know,” Courser wrote. “But if I can keep this from blowing all to hell, then I would like to give it a shot.”
Graham replied by text that he wouldn’t participate in a “cover-up” and urged his boss to resign from office.
“This kind of stuff never stays hidden. It’s going to blow up, and I can’t help cover it up,” Graham wrote. “... My best advice, consider resigning. You may be able to protect Cindy and her family and your family.”
In a reply, Courser said he didn’t plan to resign “at this point.”
“If they have something, I think a crucifixion is in order,” the lawmaker wrote in a text.
The email was sent the next day, though it’s unclear by whom.
Six weeks later, Graham was fired, as was an aide who worked for Gamrat. Since taking office in January, Courser, a married father of four, and Gamrat, a married mother of three, have worked together closely, even sharing office operations. Both are vocal opponents of gay marriage (the values of “traditional marriage” are praised on both politicians’ websites).
Courser told the News that the voice on the recording was his, though he’s refused to comment on its contents and questioned its legality.
“I’m not commenting on what happened in my office between Ben [Graham] and I inside here,” he said. “... I don’t have any comment at all.”
