By Joel Thurtell
U.S Rep. John Conyers says he’s sorry his son misused a congressional car.
The congressman wants to reimburse the government for his son’s bad behavior.
Ain’t that sweet?
Congressman Conyers actually concedes there might be something wrong with someone using government property for his own private benefit.
Wonder where John Conyers III learned that kind of behavior?
At his father’s knee.
Or maybe from reading my articles in the Detroit Free Press before my editors decided that outing the congressman’s longtime abuse of congressional staff and property, thereby flouting federal laws and congressional ethics rules, was not a cool story. Here is a link to my blog stories along with my Free Press stories about Conyers.
The first story ran on November 21, 2003 and was a roadmap for anyone in the FBI or House ethics committee who might have wanted to investigate the kind of violations that, when proved in a court of law, sent another Detroit congressman, Charles Diggs, to prison. Diggs was convicted of fraud for assigning congressional staffers to work in his family’s funeral home while they were collecting federal pay. A sidebar story on the same day detailed how I tracked down one of Conyers’ staffers working on government pay for the campaign of a presidential candidate and Conyers pal in Chicago. Yet another story of mine outlined how Conyers assigned staffers on government time to chauffeur, babysit and tutor his sons.
I believed there was far more to be uncovered, but my editors bumped into the end of their attention span, and I was assigned to write suburban fluff. At the time, Conyers’ kids were not old enough to drive.
[I certainly don’t want to be thought of as shamelessly plugging my soon-to-be-published book, SHOESTRING REPORTER, but it is available on amazon.com for immediate shipping, and it does discuss my experiences covering Conyers when I was a Free Press reporter. There, was that shameless enough? Why, the book is so new, so hot-off-the-press, that JOTR hasn’t even run a review!]
According to the December 1, 2010 Detroit Free Press, Conyers made a statement about his son’s misuse of a government-paid car: “I have just learned about the inappropriate use of a congressional vehicle by my son over the Thanksgiving holiday. I am sorry it happened and will make sure that it does not happen again.”
Translation: Please continue to give me a pass. Pretend my son didn’t do it, and don’t look hard at my past transgressions.
Meanwhile, Conyers can sit down with his son and have a frank talk about the dos and don’ts of elected officialdom.
“Son, do as I SAY do, not as I do.”
I’ve got an idea for JC. How about reimbursing, with interest, the federal government for all those abuses and misuses of federal staff and property we listed in the Free Press seven years ago?
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
Another local blogger I respect, Darrell Dawsey, also has an idea for JC:
“Slap John Conyers III upside the head a couple of times to really make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he wrote Dec. 1 at MLive.com.
Darrell notes that “Conyers Jr. Jr. has had a front-row seat to some unforgettable examples of how it can all end. He and his pop need to show a better appreciation for the slipperiness of that slope.”
While acknowledging “his early work in civil rights,” the African American blogger suggests it’s time for JC to pack. “He mostly strikes me these days as a tired shell, a man content with going through the pretense of politics and catching up on a few naps.”
Full post: http://bit.ly/grO6vD
John III, or “Little John” as he was called in JC’s congressional offices when I was there, showed emotional problems from a very young age. You are right on, Joel, about what he learned from his daddy’s knee…and frighteningly from his mother’s (MonCon).
“You are member of a family with entitlement privileges, most particularly, you will never be held accountable for wrongdoing. I am the Big Daddy of Justice!”