Ethics probe of Rep. Alan Grayson roils race to replace Marco Rubio in Senate

WASHINGTON -- The bid by Rep. Alan Grayson to replace failed presidential candidate Marco Rubio as Florida's representative in the Senate took a hit Tuesday when the House ethics panel declined to drop its investigation of Grayson's alleged use of his congressional post to draw investors to multimillion-dollar hedge funds he owned.

The House Ethics Committee for the first time released an official account of the allegations against Grayson, an Orlando Democrat considered one of the leading contenders to win the Senate seat to be vacated by the retiring Rubio, who dropped his presidential bid after Donald Trump won all but one county in the Florida primary.

The documents made public Tuesday also included strong denials of the allegations by Grayson, a third-term congressman who first gained election in 2008, was defeated in 2010 and then won back his House seat in 2012.

The ethics panel released the referral it received in January from the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent and nonpartisan agency established in 2008 to review allegations of misconduct by House members or their aides.

In his January response to the allegations, Brett Kappel, a lawyer for Grayson, said the referral had been "irreparably tainted by the gross misconduct of the OCE staff."

Kappel said the "(Ethics) Committee should dismiss it summarily."

The House Ethics Committee, which is chaired by Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and includes Rep. Ted Deutch, a fellow Florida Democrat who represents Palm Beach County, could have dropped the matter but chose not to do so.

"In order to gather additional information necessary to complete its review, the Committee will (further) review the matter," Dent and Rep. Linda Sanchez of California, the panel's senior Democrat, said in a joint statement.

Dent and Sanchez cautioned that "the mere fact of conducting further review of a referral, and any mandatory disclosure of such further review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee."

In making the original referral public and agreeing to extend its probe, the House ethics panel acted on the last day of a congressionally mandated deadline to report the original allegations and decide whether to move forward in probing them within 90 days of the referral.

James Rosen: 202-383-0014; Twitter:@jamesmartinrose

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Ethics probe of Rep. Alan Grayson roils race to replace Marco Rubio in Senate ."