MONTPELIER — An ethics complaint has been filed against Rep. Gina Galfetti and other state legislators who went on a trip to Israel in September on that government’s dime.
The complaint alleges the local lawmakers violated state law by accepting gifts from the Israeli government, including round-trip travel to the country, four nights in five-star hotels in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and meals, internal travel in the country and guided programming events. The total amount of the alleged gift is $6,500, a figure that came from the Consulate General of Israel to New England as officials were organizing the trip, according to the complaint.
Five state lawmakers participated in the trip, which ran from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18. They are Galfetti, R-Washington-Orange; Sarah “Sarita” Austin, D-Chittenden-19; Matthew Birong, D-Addison-3; Will Greer, D-Bennington-2; and James Gregorie, R-Franklin-6. Galfetti represents Barre Town and a portion of Williamstown in the Vermont House.
The ethics complaint was filed by the Vermont and New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, which describes itself as the world’s largest Jewish organization supporting Palestine.
In a news release Monday announcing the complaint, Liz Blum, a member of the chapter, said, “That Vermont legislators would accept $6,500 in gifts to be lobbied by a foreign government is disturbing in its own right, but it is indefensible that the five in question allowed themselves to be lobbied by a government that stands credibly accused by multiple organizations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.”
The release stated the chapter wants the state’s Ethics Commission to recommend a thorough investigation into the trip by the state House Ethics Panel and to take appropriate disciplinary actions should that investigation show the legislators violated Vermont’s Code of Ethics.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, described as the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, released a statement of support Tuesday for the decision to file the ethics complaint. The organization called the trip a “propaganda tour intended to generate political support for the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Galfetti forwarded a statement Tuesday morning to The Times Argus and noted she has no plans to resign, though some critics of the trip have called on her to do just that.
In the statement, Galfetti wrote she was “disturbed and unsettled by the reaction of a small number of people to my trip to Israel. I have been threatened and fear for my safety at this point. I took the trip to learn and ask tough questions.”
She wrote she has publicly condemned “the Netanyahu government and its actions in Gaza” in print and on the radio. The lawmaker wrote she believes in a two-state solution and respects and values her Palestinian and Jewish constituents.
Galfetti wrote she will be busy with the session just kicking off, “working on issues that affect Vermonters this session, such as education funding reform, public safety, housing and rising health care costs.”
She also took issue with what she described as lies about the trip and “pushing an incendiary false narrative designed to spread disinformation and increase political discord in these troubled times.” Galfetti wrote she was saddened to see such “political warfare” in Vermont.
In an interview Tuesday, Galfetti said she had made Capitol police aware of the threats she’s received. She said the threats she received via email generally instructed her to die and said she deserved to go to hell and to suffer.
Galfetti said during a safety meeting Tuesday at the State House, she was instructed to make Barre Town police aware of the threats.
She forwarded The Times Argus an email she received Monday sent to state legislators. The email came from the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation. It asked legislators to call on the five who went on the trip to resign and included a list of names of people who signed a petition in support of their resignation.
“If they refuse, you should expel them. … Silence, evasion, or alibis on this issue would signal not just complicity but tacit support for the actions of these five legislators,” the email reads.
Galfetti said she took the email as a threat to the General Assembly, that other legislators would be “smeared” if they didn’t comply.
“This is just not the Vermont way of doing business,” she said.
Galfetti said she fully understood this trip would be curated by the Israeli government, but no one in Gaza or Palestine had reached out to her to experience what was going on over there. She said the trip was a limited opportunity while not in session to see things that other politicians have seen. Galfetti took issue with the criticism she and the four other state legislators have received about the trip. She said congressional and state representatives from Vermont have taken trips to the Middle East in the past, paid for by supporters of Israel, an ally of the United States.
“We toured cultural sites, we definitely toured all of the Oct. 7 attack sites, and they let us draw our own conclusions,” Galfetti said.