NYT Alan Grayson: congressman and hedge fund manager.

[littlewolf]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/us/politics/alan-graysons-double-life-congressman-and-hedge-fund-manager.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=4&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=065957DC608427482AB43663853010DC&gwt=pay&referer=

WASHINGTON — The hedge fund manager boasted that he had traveled to “every country” in the world, studying overseas stock markets as he fine-tuned an investment strategy to capitalize on global companies’ suffering because of economic or political turmoil.
But the fund manager had an even more distinctive credential to showcase in his marketing material in June 2013: He was a “U.S. congressman,” Representative Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Now he is also among the leading Democratic candidates for one of Florida’s United States Senate seats.
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.
Interviews and the documents show that Mr. Grayson told potential investors in his hedge fund that they should contribute money to the fund to capitalize on the unrest he observed around the world, and to take particular advantage when there was “blood in the streets.”

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.

much more at the link.
how much damage do you think this will cause?

[Nye Bevan]

1. Alan Grayson is a genius.

He's the only hedge-fund one-percenter in the world who has figured out how to make almost all of DU like him. And not only like him, but send him money too!

[djean111]

3. I like him better than Patrick Murphy (DINO-since-2012-FL), and that's all that counts,

for me. Murphy only switched in order to run against another Republican, voted yes on establishing the Benghazi panel, and votes with the GOP a lot. Member of the Third-Way-advised New Democrat Coalition. One of Debbie Wasserman-DINO's BFFs.

I will be voting for Grayson. I don't have to live with Grayson, but I have to live with whatever legislation Grayson introduces and/or votes on. I feel that I will be better off with Grayson. So he will be getting my vote, and the votes of my family.

Oh, and Murphy doesn't need my money any more than Grayson does, and if how much money a politician personally has is the arbiter of what they should ask for or receive - then why the fuck are people sending Hillary money?

[libdem4life]

2. Put Grayson and Hillary on a Time Out until after the elections. We don't need either one.

Sorry to burst the OMG bubble. Get rid of them Ds and Rs alike. That is exactly what we are saying...too much influence...bring down the cozy elites...of which Grayson is a member and for whom I have lost tremendous respect over the past couple of years.

Before jumping on his status as a Democrat, please recall that Bernie wants to clean houses of both parties.

[Hortensis]

4. I'd actually think better of him if it were

a successful hedge fund. After all, although the House should have investigated immediately to make sure all was aboveboard and stayed that way, hedge funds are not synonymous with crooked, and nor is management of them. But a sitting congressman running money through the Cayman Islands? That's just plain self destructive in a man with so many enemies.

Whatever. This has actually been helping the Democrats. The GOP was hoping to run against Grayson for Rubio's Senate seat, but Grayson is such a loose flywheel and liability that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has actually been supporting his primary opponent, a moderately conservative former Republican against him.

Still, longtime Grayson friend and major Democratic donor John Morgan said that Grayson’s problem is that he doesn’t realize he has a problem: his own personality.

“I like Alan’s politics. Alan is smart, brilliant. He’s a self-made man and went to Harvard,” Morgan said. “But Alan thinks he’s always the smartest guy in the room and he believes his own instincts and doesn’t listen to other people, and that’s why he had this staff shakeup. I’ve been saying for months that Alan will self-implode because he can’t help himself. And it’s happening now.” Politico story about 3 of Grayson's top staffers leaving.