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."
On this Craig thing, I don't know that the cop was in any way bad or lying BUT the evidence on Craig was pathetically weak. The cop talked Craig into a confession to a minor charge, by threatening Craig with jail and getting Craig to think that pleading toa charge of foot contact is an easy way out.
If Craig had not talked to the cop, this would have been a totally disputed story on weak evidence.
Complain???? GUTS???? Not complaining rather making the point that there is more here than just some tapping the toes in the men's room. Some sins I mean crimes seem to get more attention than others just depending upon whose mantle is getting a taring.
Now as far as the supposed GOP in control that is a whole different matter than having Conservatives in control. What is continually being demonstrated is there is little difference than letters of the alphabet in the mainstream GOP BIG TENT controllers than the socialistic leftists they crawl into bed with at night time.
Remember the timesharing Lott, now what does anybody have on him to make him willing to share the power of the Senate, and why was it a bunch of wilted roses that refused to have an actual literal show of evidence trial of impeachment???? I think we conservatives have bought into a deception from a bunch of RHINOs who now seem to want to preen their good names about while accepting real ugly corruption to save their own hides.
What’s wrong with a man having anal sex with another man in the privacy of a bathroom stall?! Especially at an airport. Senator Craig is innocent, leave him alone.
Correction. The Senator did not give his card to the cop in the stall.
When he was interrogated, he did.
The cop gave his card to the senator when he was in the stall and then told him he was under arrest.
You don’t know what the senators thing was. you know what the cop’s thing was.
Listen to the damned tape.
Senator Crapo opposed and voted against the amnesty bill, and has always opposed it. He’s one of the few good Senators that we still have in DC.
I doubt the Haditha Marines or the Duke Lacrosse players would agree with that sentiment.
Problem is that if we get all gays out of R party, we lose at least two more senators, one very highly placed and at least one very highly placed Rep, about 50 staffers (10 of the senior) ... as well as an honored R diplomat.
I don’t mind debating you. But I do not get into name calling.
If open borders do scare you with National Security Issues, then what I say.
Other than for a lot of Americans it is the MOST IMPORTANT Issue.
-—DK: Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we’re going down the tubes. Anything to add?-—
Pretty much sums up how many of us feel when we watch the current crop of political charlatans and clowns.
I suppose it could be argued that because the airport is a taxpayer-funded and therefore public place, interfering with consensual 'acts' such as what is being alluded to constitutes sex discrimination.
I wonder where the ACLU, NAMBLA, LAMBDA, and other homosexual 'rights' groups stand (or bend over) on this issue?
Yes but the WORLD assumed they were guilty! Just because they were so charged! It wouldn’t have mattered how they had plead their case - initially.
Senator Craig we COAXED constantly through that “interrogation” that if he “cooperated” he wouldn’t go to jail, blah blah blah....the Senator said clearly he needed to make his flight....he didn’t want to go to jail....he was obviously trying to get on his flight and get away from this stupid cop. He KNEW he was innocent but to fight it meant going to jail right then! And posting bail!, etc etc etc.
It was a lose lose situation.
Please reconsider.
We now know NIFONG was the criminal and he was the law enforcement official!!!! Cops can do the wrong things.
I salute the ones who are doing legitimate good work to catch such creeps as those who do such acts as most of the world THINKS Sen. Craig did - yet he was NEVER ACCUSED not ONCE in the police interrogation of doing such things. And he NEVER admitted to having done such things.
Does that even matter to you????
Thank you! Agreed!!!!
Are you being specious on purpose?
There was no sex. There was no talking. They were never in the same stall. Their feet bumped, the Senator picked up somemthing off the floor. He got taken into custody.
‘If Craig had not talked to the cop, this would have been a totally disputed story on weak evidence”
Exactly!. It’s called getting an attorney and fighting it when one had the chance.
That moment is gone.
Don't these idiots ever read what they have written before they hit the good ol' 'send button'?!? Though many are trying, spell checkers still can't quite nail down the context of words. This leaves us with the terrible inconvenience of actually having to read what we have written.
As someone who works in an office environment everyday, and reads many emails, I can tell you right now that very few people do it...
Whatever.
But I still like you on the “American Idol” threads.
We agree it is an important issue.
I am not willing to watch a man being destroyed over flimsy evidence because he voted wrong.
Are you? You seemed to say that it is okay since he voted for amnesty.
I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy destroyed on the basis of flimsy evidence. Would you?
That moment is not gone by any means. He has an attorney. He has the will to fight this. But the constant calls for him to resign by those stupid enough to judge without having the facts (as in the Lacross case)and to JOIN the liberal hypocrites who want him OUT because he has been a STAUNCH CONSERVATIVE - and an opponent to the militant gay agenda -— is so repulsive and dismaying....it makes one want to give up on the whole caboodle.
But like Mark Levin says - and said tonight - we are NOT going to give up or to give in! We are GOING TO FIGHT the liberal hordes! THAT is where this nonsense has come from and THAT is what is going on and those who continually refuse to give the Senator a chance to defend himself and get the facts out (like the LaCross players FINALLY AFTER MONTHS AND MONTHS were able to do)......are either blind, dumb, or they belong to the Marxist enemies of this nation!
Plus a very senior Party official and a very senior WH advisor
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