[Vision2020] Craig still making headlines

[Sue Hovey]

Craig still making headlinesToday during an interview on NPR Dan Popkey stated there have been allegations from as far back as when he was in college, along with others, one a "credible" witness, but when Craig denied everything they decided not to run it. 

SH
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Solomon 
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 3:37 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Craig still making headlines


  From the lead story section of the NYTimes on-line edition.


  m.


  Idaho Senator Says He Did Nothing Wrong



  By DAVID STOUT and CARL HULSE
  Published: August 28, 2007

  WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 - Senator Larry Craig said today that he regretted his guilty plea in connection with an airport bathroom incident, and he accused an Idaho newspaper of hounding him mercilessly in recent months.

  "I am not gay, I never have been gay," Mr. Craig, an Idaho Republican, declared at a brief appearance in Boise with his wife, Suzanne Craig, at his side.

  Mr. Craig, 62, apologized for "the cloud placed over Idaho" by his arrest and guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge. But his deepest regret, he said, is that he pleaded guilty when he had done nothing wrong.

  The senator said he had chosen to plead guilty without consulting a lawyer, and before telling his family, in the hope that the incident would just "go away" somehow.

  "That was a mistake, and I deeply regret it," he said.

  Now, he said, he has retained counsel to decide what to do next. Mr. Craig said he would announce soon whether he will seek a fourth term next year.

  Meanwhile, the Senate Republican leadership sought to quarantine the possible political damage arising from Mr. Craig's troubles, calling the incident "a serious matter" and recommending that the Senate Ethics Committee review the affair.

  "In the meantime, leadership is examining other aspects of the case to determine if additional action is required," said the statement issued by Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader; Trent Lott of Mississippi, the assistant leader; Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican conference leader; Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the policy committee chairwoman, and John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the party's Senate campaign committee.

  Mr. Craig said today that he and his family had been "relentlessly and viciously harassed" for months by The Idaho Statesman, a daily newspaper based in Boise, which has been pursuing rumors about his personal life. He said the stress created by the newspaper's efforts "and the rumors it has fueled all around Idaho" had clouded his judgment.

  Otherwise, he offered no detailed explanation today for the embarrassing events that began with his arrest in June by an undercover police officer in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, Mr. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. A second charge against Mr. Craig, interference with privacy, was dismissed. He was given a 10-day jail sentence that was suspended; was fined more than $500; and was placed on unsupervised probation for one year.

  According to a police report obtained by Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper that disclosed the episode and the guilty plea on Monday, a plainclothes police officer who was investigating complaints of sexual activity in the airport bathroom arrested the senator on June 11 after what the officer described as sexual advances made by Mr. Craig from an adjoining stall.

  After his arrest, the senator denied any sexual intent. He said in a statement issued Monday afternoon that the whole matter came down to a misunderstanding, and that the police were "misconstruing my actions." In 2006, Mr. Craig publicly rejected allegations by a gay rights advocate that he had engaged in a homosexual behavior, calling the claims "completely ridiculous."
  More Articles in Washington »


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070828/c905d304/attachment-0001.html