Democratic Senate candidate John Hickenlooper told a local television station it should be “protecting” him from an ethics complaint alleging that he improperly received gifts as governor of Colorado.
“You guys should be protecting me on stuff like this, where there’s no clear—how could there be—what’s the confusion, that I had a private meeting?” Hickenlooper said during an interview with KUSA. In the interview, he discussed a Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (CIEC) investigation into a 2018 complaint alleging that he had accepted travel perks, including free jet rides, from friends while he was governor.
“There were no private meetings. That I somehow saved money myself? I wasn’t going to pay for that plane ticket. I saved the state money,” Hickenlooper said. “You know, I’ll be very surprised if they [the CIEC] come back and say in any way this is unethical.”
Last week, the CIEC released a fact-finding report about the complaint against Hickenlooper. The report drew no conclusions, but but was created in response to allegations that the former governor may have violated state ethics laws and guidelines on gifts. – READ MORE