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Hagedorn: I’ve Got No Problem Breaking Ethics Rules

09/09/2020

Leaked comments come after Hagedorn tried to distance himself from violations

Last night, the Star Tribune broke the news that Congressman Hagedorn told his former Chief of Staff that he didn’t see any problem with spending taxpayer money on businesses owned by his own employees – despite that spending being a clear violation of House ethics rules according to experts.

“It’s disturbing that Congressman Hagedorn is completely willing to break House ethics rules and use our tax dollars to line the pockets of his employees,” said DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin. “Numerous non-partisan experts on government ethics have said that Hagedorn’s actions are immoral, unethical, and against the rules of the United States Congress.”

This latest news also calls into question why Hagedorn fired his chief of staff, Peter Su. When the story of Su’s firing broke, sources close to Hagedorn said it was due to “irregular spending,” however since Hagedorn has no problem spending tax dollars on businesses owned by his own employees, that cannot explain the firing.

Hagedorn also had no objection to spending 20% of his office budget on campaign-style mailings during the first 3 months of 2020, which rules that out as a possible explanation as well. As Hagedorn told KTTC, “we have a portion of our budget that goes towards mailings. There was a finite number of dollars that was spent on that. We were always going to do that.”

“Congressman Hagedorn has done everything possible to evade responsibility for the ethics scandal in his office,” added Martin. “Hagedorn has lied, thrown his staff under the bus, and hired a lawyer for crooked politicians to get him out of trouble, but none of that is going to fool the people of Southern Minnesota. Taxpayers deserve a real, outside investigation with subpoena power to get to the bottom of what happened in Congressman Hagedorn’s office and what he knew.”