It should come as no surprise to anyone that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl.) is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for serious ethics violations. This was pre-ordained by the proclivities he has shown throughout his political career. In his case, the primary tell is his complete lack of civility, which is symptomatic of a crucial respect deficit. Those who do not regard displaying respect for colleagues, fellow citizens, political adversaries and, more broadly, societal standards of fairness and decency as an important behavioral mandate cannot be trusted to respect any other ethical values either. Occasionally one will find someone who deals in insults and personal denigration who is otherwise ethical, just as one will occasionally encounter a baby goat with two heads, but it is rare indeed. If you go through life avoiding uncivil, verbally abusive people like the plague (indeed, such people carry the plague of de-civilization) you will not miss out on very many good companions, and you will spare yourself a lot of misery as well the danger of personal corruption.

Grayson is without question the most uncivil, rudest, least professional member of Congress. I was amused to find that I had mentioned him in a post from 2010 about how many ethics scandals were predictable, given the past conduct of their principle actors. Once Tom DeLay was out of Congress, Alan Grayson was easily the most likely candidate for a scandal, because the man has no ethics alarms. In my very first post about Grayson, I wrote (in 2009),

“Grayson is the Congressman whose explanation of the GOP position on health care was that “they want you to die.” He said that Dick Cheney speaks with “blood dripping from his teeth.” His mode of debate and persuasion, in other words, is insult and hyperbole. Respect for opposing views: zilch. Civility grade: F… He has endorsed unethical rules and plays by them…”

That post was about Grayson trying to get the Justice Department to shut down a website that mocked him. Yes, he doesn’t believe in freedom of speech, either, when he is the target of insults rather than the generator of them.

All of which led me to react with a smile and a yawn when it was revealed that the disgusting congressman, now running for the U.S. Senate–Sure! Why not?—has been secretly moonlighting as a hedge fund manager. It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit: “By day, a Wall Street-bashing, 1% hating, populist Democratic Congressman! By night, a wheeling and dealing hedge-fund manager!”

Do I need to explain why this is a slam-dunk conflict of interest with the appearance of impropriety? I don’t think so. It also smells of insider trading and using information privy to elected officials for personal gain. On the other side, he used his position as a U.S. House of Representatives member to attract clients.

From the New York Times (it’s me breaking in a couple of  times):

“This highly unusual dual role — a sitting House lawmaker running a hedge fund, which until recently had operations in the Cayman Islands — has led to an investigation of Mr. Grayson by the House Committee on Ethics.

“The inquiry has become public, but emails and marketing documents obtained by The New York Times show the extent to which Mr. Grayson’s roles as a hedge fund manager and a member of Congress were intertwined, and how he promoted his international travels, some with congressional delegations, to solicit business….The emails also show how Mr. Grayson’s work for the hedge fund — which had $16.4 million in assets as of October and only four investors since it was established — at times interfered with his other duties. In August 2015, after Mr. Grayson introduced legislation calling for larger annual increases in Social Security benefits, he signed off on a plan to highlight the proposal at an event in Tampa, Fla., emails obtained by The Times show. But the plan was scuttled, two former aides said, when economic turmoil in China sent stock markets tumbling globally and Mr. Grayson had to turn his attention to the fund…

In private emails in June, Mr. Grayson’s aides pleaded with him to close the hedge fund, convinced that its focus on investing in nations hit by political or economic strife, and its ties to the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven, sharply conflicted with his image as a scold of Wall Street…— even if he had not done anything wrong.”

Ugh.

The aides, or the Times, or both, mean ‘even if he had not done anything illegal.’

This violates the House ethics code, as clear as clear can be: 

Rule XXIII – Code Of Official Conduct

There is hereby established by and for the House the following code of conduct, to be known as the “Code of Official Conduct”:

1. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.

2. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House and to the rules of duly constituted committees thereof.

3. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House may not receive compensation and may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress…

Meanwhile, the House ethics handbook condemns “the appearance of impropriety” throughout.

Back to the Times…

“This is going to be the drip, drip, drip story that never goes away,” Doug Dodson, Mr. Grayson’s Senate campaign manager until the end of 2015, wrote in a June email to Mr. Grayson, saying his political opponents would “try to make you look like a hypocrite and a fraud and not the populist you claim to be.”

Ya think?

“Sometimes, Mr. Grayson deployed his aides to work for the fund and his political activity at the same time. Todd Jurkowski, a former spokesman in Mr. Grayson’s House office, was the vice president for investor relations when the fund was started while also serving as treasurer for Mr. Grayson’s campaign in 2012. More recently, David Keith, finance director for Mr. Grayson’s Senate campaign, was being paid about $1,000 a month, in part to help Mr. Grayson in a search for new investors in his hedge fund, Mr. Keith said in an interview. He worked for Mr. Grayson from early 2014 to late 2015, he said….”

Enough. Who knows? The House Democrats may manage to keep Grayson from being punished as he should be—the House ethics rules have enough holes to fill the Albert Hall—but there is no doubt: he’s a disgrace to Congress, and if this isn’t the scandal that brings him down, there is another on the way. Unethical people are like that. Uncivil people are like that.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. Among the many foolish rationalizations his civically, historically, politically and generally ignorant supporters* use to justify his unethical rhetoric and demeanor is that these are  just a defiance of political correctness, and are otherwise harmless. Character doesn’t work like that. An uncivil public figure who argues by invective, vulgarity and bullying—Grayson is also a bully—is displaying a willingness to cheat: to win disputes not on merit, but by intimidation and slander. A cheater can be trusted to cheat, and that’s about all. Trump is a cheater, and can only be trusted to engage in more ethical breaches than just incivility in pursuit of his own ends. He’s considerately warning those of us with the perception to be warned—just like Alan Grayson warned us.

* Aside: Lately pundits have been attacking media sources for condemning Trump supporters as dolts, fools and idiots. It may be true that doing so is poor strategy if the idea is to stop Trump, but it is not poor journalism. Supporting someone as vile and non-substantive as Donald Trump to lead the nation is by definition irresponsible and moronic. For any journalism source not to report this for fear of alienating the stupid segment of its market is a breach of duty.

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Graphic: Politico