Alan Grayson finally shuts his clam.
The so-called “Congressman With Guts,” Rep. Alan Grayson, refused to answer any questions about his recent meeting with a House ethics investigator that is looking into his little hedge fund scandal.Grayson told a POLITICO reporter that he couldn’t talk about the meeting with the investigator.
Here is what the POLITICO reported on the exchange Grayson had with one of their reporters:
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“As I understand the rules, we’re not allowed to discuss anything to do with the OCE at all,” Grayson told POLITICO when repeatedly pressed on the issue.
Contrary to Grayson’s claims, there does not appear to be any prohibition against him discussing his case, ethics lawyers said.
The self-described “congressman with guts” also refused to comment about why his Senate campaign last quarter paid about $15,000 for “legal services” to Akerman Senterfitt. A lawyer from the firm represented Grayson in his Wednesday meeting with the ethics investigator.Akerman received the first of its four payments from Grayson’s campaign on July 6, the day a conservative watchdog group called Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust announced it was filing an OCE complaint in response to a June 30 POLITICO report that raised questions about whether Grayson broke House ethics rules by putting his name in the titles of three hedge funds. They were overseen by a management company that also bore his name.
By using his name in the title of each of the funds, Grayson ran afoul of a House ethics rule designed to prevent members from using their elected offices for financial gain. Grayson, though, has said this rule does not apply to him because he had no “fiduciary responsibility” over the funds. Experts, however, dispute his claim.
Even Democrats are going after Grayson over this.
After Grayson was hit with his first ethics complaint, a supporter of his Democratic opponent for Senate, Rep. Patrick Murphy, filed a second complaint that alleged he unethically used his name to boost his funds’ earning power and that he also failed to disclose potential income from the funds.
Grayson’s office says his “disclosures are complete in every respect, including all conceivable applicable requirements regarding the fund.” It also describes the complaints as “completely unwarranted.”While denying wrongdoing, Grayson changed the name of the hedge funds and related companies. He struck his last name and replaced it with the name “Sibylline” in each case. So, for instance, Grayson Fund L.P. was changed to Sibylline Fund L.P.
“The Congressman decided it was easier to change the name than continue to argue about it,” spokesman Ken Scudder said.
Grayson also claimed he shut down two of the funds in the Cayman Islands, but wouldn’t provide reporters with documentation to prove it.
Grayson gets testy over being asked being asked to talk about his meeting with the investigator
“Don’t you think it’s incumbent on you, before you ask a question like that, to see if you’re right about that? If it turns out that you’re wrong, then what you’re doing is you’re asking a member of congress to commit an unethical act that you’re reporting right now,” Grayson said.“If in fact there is a rule — which I think there is — against any discussion of OCE matters, then you are basically suborning me to commit an unethical act,” Grayson said.
That last comment struck Washington ethics lawyer Kenneth Gross as particularly odd. He said that when reporters ask questions in interviews, it’s not an act of “suborning” someone to commit an unethical or criminal act.
Gross said he has handled dozens of OCE cases and was unaware of anything that prohibited members from commenting on their cases. He said that in criminal investigations, targets of the FBI or a grand jury can discuss the cases and a congressman should be able to as well in a civil matter like this. Another Washington ethics lawyer, Stanley Brand, said he wasn’t aware of any prohibition, either.
More on Grayson’s hedge fund scandal to come…