WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A prominent Detroit newspaper has called on Democratic Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to resign, arguing the longtime Congressman used taxpayer dollars to pay 'hush money' to a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not succumb to the lawmaker's sexual advances.
The call for Conyers' resignation by the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press comes after a report from BuzzFeed said the congressman's office paid the woman $27,000 in 2015 in exchange for a confidentiality agreement.
Amid the news that the House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into the allegations, the Detroit Free Press said Conyers should resign and allow the investigation to unfold without the threat that it would render him and the people he represents effectively voiceless.
The Detroit Free Press said it reached the conclusion with an incredible amount of disappointment but called the BuzzFeed story absolutely devastating to Conyers' ability to stay in Congress.
The paper's editorial board argued that Conyers flouted congressional rules by paying the woman as a temporary 'no-show' employee in exchange for dropping her wrongful dismissal complaint rather than going through Congress' Office of Compliance.
'This agreement disrupted the accepted process to deal with claims against members of Congress, and leveraged taxpayer funds - without the oversight of the ethics apparatus of the body itself - to make this claim go away,' the Detroit Free Press said. 'That's not acceptable, on any level.'
The editorial board added, 'It's a betrayal that breaches the most fundamental trust that exists between a public servant and the people that person represents.'
The paper noted that Conyers' office defended the arrangement as a means to avoid 'protracted litigation' and defended the sum as a 'reasonable severance payment.'
'John Conyers Jr. must go - after 53 years in Congress, after a stellar career of fighting for equality, after contributing so much to southeast Michigan and the nation,' the editorial board said.
'It's a tragic end to his public career,' they added. 'But it's the appropriate consequence for the stunning subterfuge his office has indulged here, and a needed warning to other members of Congress that this can never be tolerated.'
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