A conservative state representative from Michigan is accused of trying to cover up the very real affair he was having with a fellow politician by leaking a deliberately over-the-top rumor that he was caught having sex with a male sex worker behind a nightclub. It didn’t work. Here you are, reading about how it didn’t work.
Todd Courser is a freshman “Constitutional, conservative Republican” from Michigan’s 82nd District, married with four kids, who’s accused of having an affair with the also married-with-kids Tea Party freshman State Rep. Cindy Gamrat. The Detroit News broke the story of how Courser is accused of trying to hide the affair: by planning to leak an email claiming that he was seen having sex with a man behind a nightclub. Courser reasoned that his voter base, upon hearing that he’d been merely having an affair with a woman, would be comparatively non-judgmental.
Like every great Scooby Doo villain before him, Courser described his entire cunning plan to a now-former aide of his, Ben Graham, who recorded the whole thing. Gamrat and Courser combined their offices, in what the Detroit News politely describes as an “unusual” move, and had three aides working for them: Graham, Keith Allard, and Joshua Cline, all of whom told the newspaper they knew about the affair and told their bosses it was a very bad idea. Cline left the office of his own volition; Graham and Allard were both dismissed, which looks odd, since they’d both received healthy pay raises just before they were fired.
On the tape, Courser makes fairly clear references to the affair and how he plans to over it up.
“Her husband knows,” he tells Graham, referring to Gamrat’s spouse. “They’re working through their stuff.”