Whistleblower Lawsuit Filed Against House of Representatives

Two former aides of former state Representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat have filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Michigan House of Representatives.

The lawsuit by former House aides Keith Allard and Ben Graham claim House Speaker Kevin Cotter’s office failed to protect them from being fired by Courser and Gamrat after the aides refused to help cover-up the lawmakers’ affair.

Allard and Graham also claim the House staff leaked out-of-context emails and personal information as part of a smear campaign against them.

Cotter’s spokesman, Gideon D’Assandro, says the claims are without merit. He says the House Business Office did all it was legally supposed to do in terminating the staffers.

D’Assandro says, at the time, the speaker’s office did not know about the misuse of state resources in both Courser’s and Gamrat’s office.

He also says investigations into Courser’s and Gamrat’s offices corroborated the reasons for the firings.