One somewhat interesting aspect of August’s dumbest story [Update]

I’m with the Atlantic‘s Connor Friedersdorf in thinking that the real scandal in Politico‘s "exclusive" on the FBI investigation into Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder’s nude swim in the Sea of Galilee (cue walking on water jokes)  last year is that "the federal law enforcement agency responsible for stopping domestic terrorism, organized crime and bank robberies ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

I'm with the Atlantic's Connor Friedersdorf in thinking that the real scandal in Politico's "exclusive" on the FBI investigation into Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder's nude swim in the Sea of Galilee (cue walking on water jokes)  last year is that "the federal law enforcement agency responsible for stopping domestic terrorism, organized crime and bank robberies spent an unknown number of staff hours investigating skinny-dipping that took place a year ago in a foreign country, and won't explain why they did it."

I’m with the Atlantic‘s Connor Friedersdorf in thinking that the real scandal in Politico‘s "exclusive" on the FBI investigation into Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder’s nude swim in the Sea of Galilee (cue walking on water jokes)  last year is that "the federal law enforcement agency responsible for stopping domestic terrorism, organized crime and bank robberies spent an unknown number of staff hours investigating skinny-dipping that took place a year ago in a foreign country, and won’t explain why they did it."

Yoder has apologized for the indicent and is presumably thanking his lucky stars that his distinguished colleague from Missouri is dominating headlines today. But even in a month of pretty dumb political news, making a scandal Yoder’s late night dip feels like a stretch.

One thing that did catch my eye about the Politico story was that one of the (presumably clothed) colleagues that joined Yoder on the beach that night was New York Rep. Michael Grimm. As I blogged earlier this month,  Grimm’s next stop on that August 2011 junket was Cyprus, where his host Peter Papanicolaou, the president of the Cyprus Federation of America, has since been arrested on Federal Corruption charges. Grimm did not file the required paperwork about the Cyprus trip, but it was reported in the New York Times in the context of a larger investigation into whether Grimm accepted illegal campaign donations. 

Just how many federal investigations were happening on that trip?

Update: Turns out it wasn’t a coincidence. The Wall Street Journal reports that it was the Grimm probe that led them to the beach incident. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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