Embattled State Rep. Cindy Gamrat To Break Silence On Extramarital Affair With Legislator
EAST LANSING (WWJ/AP) - An embattled Michigan lawmaker who had an extramarital affair with another legislator is planning to break her weeklong silence since the scandal broke.
Republican Rep. Cindy Gamrat of Plainwell, north of Kalamazoo, has scheduled a Friday afternoon news conference at an East Lansing law firm.
She and Republican Rep. Todd Courser, of Lapeer, are subjects of a House investigation into whether they misused public resources to hide their relationship and fired an aide who refused to help.
Gamrat, a tea party activist who took office in January, has not commented on the controversy or addressed calls for her resignation.
Courser has publicly acknowledged that he orchestrated a fictional email campaign in May suggesting he had sex with a male prostitute in order to distract or tamp down attention from his relationship with Gamrat. He has apologized but said he would not resign.
Courser has also accused three former aides of helping a "blackmailer" political consultant in the "establishment" GOP send him texts demanding that he resign or the affair would be exposed. The staffers and consultant said there is no truth to his allegations, and numerous legislators and party leaders have dismissed Courser as being paranoid.
The Detroit News broke the story Friday, citing secret audio recordings and texts provided by staffer Ben Graham, as well as interviews with Graham and other staffers. It reported that Graham refused to send the email containing the fictional account of Courser's payment for sex with another man, after which Graham ultimately was let go.
The newspaper also documented at least one meeting at Gamrat's taxpayer-funded office in which she, Courser and Graham discussed the affair, and that Courser missed a committee meeting during that time.
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