Congressman John Conyers wrote a letter supporting a project his wife, now convicted city council member Monica Conyers, had a financial interest in. Previously, he had opposed the project, but then made an abrupt about face. The question everyone is asking: Did he write the letter to help his wife financially benefit?
By TODD SPANGLER and JIM SCHAEFER
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Before U.S. Rep. John Conyers was for a waste injection well in Romulus, he stood with fellow Democratic Rep. John Dingell who was against it.
In 2003, the influential husband of Monica Conyers appeared at a public hearing in Romulus, standing with fellow Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell, who was dead set against a planned hazardous waste injection well in that city.
“We’re trying to keep the God-given resources that this area is blessed with as healthy and as clean as possible,” Conyers told an audience on April 21, 2003.
Early today, John Conyers offered an explanation as to why his position changed before he sent a letter on July 17, 2007, to the Environmental Protection Agency in support of Greektown businessman Dimitrios (Jim) Papas’ efforts to transfer permits that would restart the controversial, leak-prone well.
In a statement e-mailed to the Free Press just after midnight, Conyers’ office said he “determined that this was something the EPA should reconsider” based “on the context of the congressman’s representational duties to his constituents,” including the Detroit police and firemen’s pension board, which was heavily invested in the waste well operation.
The congressman’s letter did not address specific questions put to his spokeswoman by the Free Press, including whether or not John Conyers knew whether his wife had financial ties to Papas when he wrote the supportive letter to the EPA. John Conyers has repeatedly refused to be interviewed directly about the letter, or his wife.
