(photo: M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico)
30 January 14
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." – Mark Twain, circa 1890
"Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this f**king balcony." – Congressman Michael Grimm, R-NY, January 28, 2014
et's
grant that Mark Twain was using hyperbole while committing a verbal
insult against a widely despised class of American citizens. But that's
not a crime. At least not yet.
Republican Grimm,
by contrast, was using hyperbole (presumably) while committing a verbal
assault against a lone, non-threatening American citizen. That is a crime.
It's a threat of harm that constitutes simple assault, usually a
misdemeanor. Grimm was not arrested, of course, for his illegal,
thuggish behavior. As a Congressman, he may even be immune from
accountability for such criminal assault as long as he commits it in
Congress.
To be more than fair to Rep. Grimm, who is 44, he made
his threat in circumstances in which he himself felt threatened by a
question from the younger, smaller man he threatened. As a former Marine
and a former FBI agent, he also managed to personify the negative
Hollywood stereotype of both.
This was immediately after the State of the Union
Address on January 28. Congressman Grimm had come up to the visitors'
gallery above the House floor to make a quick-reaction comment on the
president's speech to Capitol Hill reporter Michael Scotto,
of NY1, a Warner cable news channel. The reaction comment over,
reporter Scotto tried to get more, saying, "And just finally before we
let you go, because we have you here, we haven't had a chance to kind of
talk about some of the - "
Rep. Grimm interrupted: "I'm not speaking to you
off-topic, this is only about the president." Then he turned and walked
away, out of the picture, as the reporter asked, "But what about the -
?"
So the reporter had to close out the segment.
With Rep. Grimm gone, Scotto stepped into the empty
frame and said: "All right. So Congressman Michael Grimm does not want
to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances.
We wanted to get him on camera on that, but he, as you saw, he refused
to talk about that. Back to you. "
Then, with the intensity of the shark from "Jaws,"
Rep. Grimm sailed back into view, confronting the startled Scotto and
backing the reporter across the screen and out of sight as the camera
rolled. Scotto had explained to the Congressman that the spot would be
shot in one take, to "air it as live."
Ignoring the live camera, which showed only his back,
Rep. Grimm ripped into Scotto with quiet intensity, first threatening to
throw him off the balcony to the House floor. The exchange was brief,
less than a minute, and only partly comprehensible. It ended with
something inaudible from Scotto that elicited another threat by the
Congressman: "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll
break you in half. Like a boy."
With that, Grimm left for good. Later that night he issued a self-exculpatory statement:
"I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a
favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other
requests. The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to
comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a
disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did
not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task
and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism
and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a
favor. I doubt that I am the first member of Congress to tell off a
reporter, and I am sure I won't be the last."
Not surprisingly, since this was an assault on a
reporter, just about everyone in the media had something to say about
it, online and in print.
When the media pile on for one of their own, they pile on hard.
And a lot of what they said gave a lot more coverage
to various allegations against Grimm than they ever would have gotten if
he'd just given a typical non-answer answer to Michael Scotto's pro
forma question, instead of losing it.
"This month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Diana K. Durand,
a fund-raiser for Mr. Grimm, on charges that she illegally funneled
more than $10,000 into his campaign. Mr. Grimm has also faced an ongoing
federal investigation into accusations that he or his campaign
illegally solicited money from foreign donors," reported The New York Times.
"In a separate matter, the FBI is also probing whether Ofer Biton, an
associate of a charismatic Orthodox rabbi, collected questionable money
for Grimm's campaign from the rabbi's congregation. Many of the rabbi's
followers are Israeli citizens. Foreign donations are barred from US
campaigns," added the Christian Science Monitor.
"Rep. Michael Grimm's bizarre and scary rant against
our Michael Scotto last night is not an isolated incident; it's part of a
pattern in which the congressman has tried to avoid questions from NY1
about an ongoing probe into his campaign finances – and then become
enraged when we've dared to ask him about a legitimate story," NY1
Political director Bob Hardt wrote and demanded an apology.
"I also asked Grimm about a 1999 night-club incident
in which Grimm, who was an agent at the time, was accused by an
off-duty N.Y.P.D. officer of threatening a fellow-patron ("I'll f**kin'
make him disappear where nobody will find him," Grimm is alleged to have
said), waving a gun at the officer ("I'm gonna f**kin' kill him"), and
using racially charged language in the aftermath of the fracas ("All the
white people get out of here")," recalled The New Yorker, in a piece titled "Is Michael Grimm Man Enough to Serve?"
"His resume sounded to good to be true. Grimm is a
U.S. Marine who served in the first Gulf War, turned FBI agent
(colleagues nicknamed him "Mikey Suits" for his sharp outfits) who went
undercover to bring down a Mafia ring, turned small businessman. He is
Catholic, but raised a boatload of money from people associated with a
mystical rabbi who advised LeBron James and spent most of his time in
Israel," chimed in the Daily Beast, while noting that Grimm has denied all wrongdoing.
And so it went all day for Rep. Grimm, who plans to
seek his third term in Congress this year. Reportedly, Democrats believe
his is most likely one of the Republican House seats they can win.
Less than 24 hours after his on-camera shark attack,
Rep. Grimm started paddling in the other direction. He called Michael
Scotto to apologize (Scotto accepted the apology) and he told other reporters that he hadn't been drinking (actually he said, "That's silly.").
The organization CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in 2013 listed Rep. Grimm among its thirteen Most Corrupt members of Congress. Rep. Grimm made the bipartisan list last year, too, and in 2011, his first year in Congress.
Before the apology, fellow Republican Rep. Peter King
of New York (who is not on the 2013 Most Corrupt list), tried to
minimize the incident, telling reporters: "I've fought with reporters
myself; it's a contact sport. If you can't take it, get out…. It's
different in New York… I think it's hurt him if he backs down."
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience
in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20
years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers
Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life
magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences.
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