A Minneapolis police officer has accused Senator Larry Craig of lying in an interview after his arrest.
Posted on 08/30/2007 6:37:17 PM PDT by Stoat
Thursday, August 30th 2007, 7:57 PM
A Minneapolis police officer has accused Senator Larry Craig of lying in an interview after his arrest.
WASHINGTON - The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audiotape of the arrest.
On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police, the Idaho Republican senator, in turn, accuses the officer of soliciting him for sex.
"I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Sgt. Dave Karsnia minutes after the two men met in a men's room at the airport on June 11.
"You shouldn't be out to entrap people," Craig told the officer. "I don't want you to take me to jail."
Karsnia replied that Craig wouldn't be going to jail as long as he cooperates.
At one point during the interrogation, the officer told Craig: "You're not being truthful with me. I'm kind of disappointed in you, senator."
Meanwhile, more of Craig's Republican colleagues moved away from him Thursday in the wake of his guilty plea earlier this month to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct in the undercover police operation aimed at sex solicitors.
Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who chairs the GOP's senatorial campaign committee, stopped short of calling on Craig to resign, but suggested strongly that he should.
"I wouldn't put myself hopefully in that kind of position, but if I was in a position like that, that's what I would do," Ensign told The Associated Press in his home state. "He's going to have to answer that for himself."
Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, each turned over to charity $2,500 campaign donations they had received from Craig's political action committee. Coleman and Collins both face potentially tough faces for re-election next year.
Coleman and several other Republicans - including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - have called for Craig to resign his seat in the Senate. Craig already has agreed to a request by Republican leaders to give up his ranking status on the Veterans Affairs Committee and appropriations subcommittees.
Craig said Tuesday he had committed no wrongdoing and shouldn't have pleaded guilty. He said he had only recently retained a lawyer to advise him in the case, which threatens to write an ignominious end to a lifetime in public office.
GOP Senate leaders said they did not act lightly in asking Craig to give up his leadership posts temporarily. But they said their decision was "in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the ethics committee."
On the tape, Craig and the arresting officer can be heard arguing over what happened in the men's room minutes earlier. Craig acknowledges that the men's feet bumped, but says nothing improper happened.
"Did we bump? Yes, I think we did. You said so. I don't disagree with that," Craig said.
But Craig disputes the officer's account that he swept his hand under the stall next to him in an apparent effort to advance the encounter. They even disagree whether Craig used his right hand or his left hand.
Craig said he was merely trying to pick up a piece of paper - an account the officer disputes.
"I'm telling you that I could see, so I know that's your left hand. Also I could see a gold ring on this finger, so that's obvious it was the left hand," Karsnia tells Craig.
"Well we can dispute that," Craig says. "I'm not going to fight you in court. I reached down with my right hand to pick up the paper."
Meanwhile, Idaho Republican Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter told CNN that Craig's loss of his committee leadership posts was "problematic," adding: "I'm sure Larry and his family are going to take those things into consideration as they go forward with their decisions."
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said that "like most Idahoans, I was shocked by the allegations against Larry and by his guilty plea. However, I tend to judge people by the totality of their career and Senator Craig has been a dedicated public servant who has been an asset for Idaho for almost 30 years. At this time, I will not pass judgment on this matter."
“Whats ol Shep on Fox news have to say about this? I bet he knows his toilet etiquette.”
ROTF!
“ANd this thread has so much bigotry on it it is hard to read.”
The fact is Craig is a goner... and thee will be one less vote for Amnesty.
Thats a good thing.
OF course bathroom sex is disgusting and perverted!!!
Senator Craig has not been campaigning for it to be legalized!
And Senator Craig was not charged with engaging in such acts!
So what in the world does that have to do with the Senator going to a bathroom to use the bathroom and having the misfortune to be going next door to a police officer who is obviously keen on entrapping the Senator......with the stupidest of charges......LISTEN TO THE TAPE OF THE POLICE INTERVIEW. This “officer” would fit very well in Nifong’s menagerie.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/the-craig-tape/
He is acting strangly though.. He SHOULD BE MAD.. if not guilty..
"On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police.."
Is it customary to "release" arrest tapes? Are they public record?
I don't know the circumstances of the release, but I'm guessing that some media organ filed a Freedom Of Information Act Request and it was released pursuant to that.
I suppose that tapes made by police officers fall under the same legal definitions as 911 tapes which are frequently released to the press,
AMEN!!!!
A buddy of mine (army officer) in a routine stop gets out of his car to talk to the cop, and the cop pulls a gun on him. Family in the car, my buddy chewed the cop out but bad things can happen.
Typical case, cop stops me for speeding I do not believe I was. take my seat belt off to get my wallet out after I stop. Cell phone in the cup holder. Cop starts trying to get me to say I was on the cell phone while driving. I dont fall for that. Cop eventually cites me for not wearing a seat belt! I tell him I always wear it, took it off to get my wallet for him (the truth). He says it's a lot less than the speeding ticket. This is the kind of things cops do all the time. Senator Craig was a huge plum for this cop.
Are you saying his amnesty vote makes it all okay?
Do you consider that this man may not be guilty of anything but pleaing to a misdemeanor to make an ugly scene go away?
If this man is what I think he may be, innocent of anything other than wanting to make a potential scandal go away, then this is the worst public trashing of a human being I have seen in a long time.
With republicans in the lead betraying their bigotry at every step of the way.
Nobody has to support him.But I would expect a more reasoned approach to this.
He doesn’t disgust me as much as people on this thread do.
LOL - good idea. No more toe tapping for anyone!
Craig pled guilty and the very fact that he didn't tell anyone what happened to him (if he was innocent) not even his wife, makes me pretty darned sure he was guilty.
He is fighting this now!
I’ve been following the threads related to the Haditha “atrocity” and in those threads folks are very willing to believe that the NIS investigators are capable of making stuff up to get convictions.
Newt, Livingston, Jack Ryan, Bob Packwood...all brought down by heterosexual scandal. Vitter might be. Craig looks like he’ll get the boot for being accused of soliciting for queers in a restroom.
On the D side, we have Hart and Condit. Seems that to suffer a political fatal wound from a sex scandal as a donkey you have to call the press liars and issue a challenge, or have your mistress turn up dead.
The Republicans can have higher standards, but they better make sure that the candidates they field are pure as the driven snow. The donks can tolerated philanderers and perverts, as long as they are crafty.
Heard the tape this afternoon. This thing is sounding fishier by the minute. Some of Craigs response to the cop sounded pretty logical and the cop started sounding more histerical.
Can’t imagine having a “good” job like sittin in the RR for hours trying to catch some fags attention.
Not defending Craig, but it just looks like maybe a lot more to the story than we’ve been told so far.
“What exactly was it that Sandy the Burglar was sent to destroy out of the Archives? Oh Hillry did it have your initals anywhere on it.”
You complain too much. Let me remind you that at the time all these Klintonista’s were doing their criminal thing....the hosue, senate and Oval office were ALL controlled by the GOP.
It is Bush’s Justice department and Gonzales who failed to punish these Klintonista’s law breakers. I am tired of the GOP using these as election issues, but NOT punishing these thugs for these crimes.
If you are going to moan and grown, at least have the honesty to admit to the fact that the GOP did not have the guts to punish them. And thats a fact!
I have a tendency to agree with the two of you. I have a problem with this for a number of reasons. AND we simply don’t have enough information, to make a proper judgement at this point in time.
does the cop have an audio recording, of the incident?
THank you. My Father was the bravest man I ever knew but he knew the reality of tangling with a cop.
My innocent daughter driving back to college with her boyfriend was stopped on I95 by a Va state trooper for no reason. He and the other cop got them on a side road, did not say why they were stopped other than she had a Grateful jDead sticker on the car. He asked if she had drugs and she said no. He then separated her and the boyfriend by about 200 yards so they couldn’t see one another, scared the hell out of her and hm. fortunately both kept their heads and did not object. Finally after about 45 minutes while the cop had her way off the road in a ditch, they let them go. They searched the car without reason.
I know what cops do. Bad cops. Not all are bad but I don’t take my chances with them. Some are worse than criminals.
Craig does NOT have a checkered past....that too is all “rumor and inuendo”. You do know that the Idaho Statesman had its reporters going after Senator Craig for MONTHS before this “broke”....and immediately after it “broke” they printed an in depth report on the Senator....from a reporter who interviewed HUNDREDS of acquaintances of the Senator.
And what did this hack find???
3 people in 40 so years who claimed something about a “homosexual encounter”.
1 of them claimed oral sex with Craig (”I am sure it was the Senator”).....oh but he chooses to remain anonymous....
1 of them claimed Craig followed him around smiling at him in an REI store in 1994......an obvious “fag attack”.....
and the third person was in the 1960’s in his fraternity rush party claiming Craig “came on to him” which Craig flatly denies.
NOW DON’T YOU THINK that if the Senator were a blazing homosexual pervert crusing for sex in bathrooms that there would be TONS of evidence to back up these “rumors”????
There is nothing there.
But don’t we understand by now that if it is repeated enough, people believe it to be true!
99% of Americans today think Sen. Craig committed a perverse sex act in that bathroom in Minnesota when he was not charged with doing anything of the sort much less pleading guilty to doing so.
A FR Recent Vanity
read the transcript of the Larry Graig interview with the Minnesota police.
I don’t like what I’m hearing from other conservatives. The liberals see a cheap Senate seat and you want to give it to them because a guy moved two fingers under the stall wall in an airport bathroom.
If they had the guy on tape asking for sex, paying for sex, or photographed in the act, or any other physical proof, then I would say that looks very very bad and he should go.
But that is not the case.
This is very lame, and those of you who have never had a disagreement with a law enforecement officer should hope that a cop never accuses you of something. Because by your own action, your professional career, and or political career, should be forit, merely on the word of the officer with no physical proof or corroborating evidence.
Those of you who pass judgement, on Larry Craig, merely on the heresay and liberal spin that has been run in the press, should be ashamed.
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