Ex-rep Todd Courser speaks out against report's findings, authenticity

DETROIT – Todd Courser spoke with Local 4 Saturday morning, just a day after his resignation from the Michigan House of Representatives.

The former representative spoke about how he is still adjusting and handling the situation.

"Obviously I'm still taking it in," said Courser. "At this point it's kind of difficult to really get my emotions and the all the mental parts and the things that happened. So I'm walking through it personally."

Courser spoke out against the authenticity of the report and its findings.

"They did it with 833 pages of information that was dropped to the house members 48 hours before the voting so the house members were voting on something that had not even for the most part even attempted to go through and read. [It was] a really shoddy investigative report if you spend any time with it, and really it's a lot of allegations but not a lot of substantial evidence when it comes to the misuse of tax-payer funds. It kind of centers around really the political whims that I faced."

The authenticity of the report was questioned further by Courser.

"The two main staffers were never called to testify and never put under oath as far as their involvement so even though one of them was willing to testify. They were willing to testify and still didn't get called so that really calls into question the authenticity of the report findings."

He had said days ago that he felt the process seemed fair.

"I was assuming that they were going to be going through another couple weeks of hearings and bring forth the evidence from the report of 833 pages."

He said that the amount of tax-payer funds that were misused would be minor. He said that in rare occasions it would be a misdemeanor and would not be grounds for expulsion.

Courser said he thought it was poetic that the Democrats were "holding this up for their own reasons."

Michigan State Police plan to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing by both Courser and former representative Cindy Gamrat.

A special primary and general elections will be held Nov. 3 and March 8 to replace Courser and Gamrat.