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."
No, he clearly said it was toilet paper he was reaching on the floor to grab. You can listen to the tape, it's on there quite clearly.
Ya got me 'rethinking' my own rush to condemn.
You are one of the reasons FR is addictive.
Now I will spend time wondering if this wasn't a primo railroad job...the kind that ruins lives and reaps of injustice.
You know-clinton MO revisited and all that rot.
As my gram used to say with a quiet but oh so powerful voice..." Well, now you've gone and done it..."
Thanks for the sanity check, I think. :^)
THere is a difference between “making something up” and “interpreting what one sees”.
It is a bit amusing, like Rashomen, how we all hear or read the same info and come to such opposite conclusions. We are a little like eye witnesses to the data. All of us bring our own suspicions, biases, histories, to the table.
Thus we see this differently.
We are on the same page.
This makes me very sad, this entire story.
A man spends 27years in the Senate and the word of a single policeman, no tape of any voices at the time of the alleged crime, no other witnesses, behavior that is not frankly soliciting, calm denials that he did anything wrong and what do we see? Rumor, innuendo, people willing to throw him under a bus for this?
Doesn’t a life lived serving the public count for anything? This is not a man with multiple arrests, sleezy behavior. This is an upstanding citizen and on flimsy evidence, really no evidence, he is being destroyed.
I am disheartened by my fellow man, by republicans.
While I have no sympathy for Craig, this toad-cop is really a treat. I can just picture his son telling his elementary school classmates, "My daddy went to college for six years so that he can bust wierdos in airport bathroom stalls!"
So, should I then infer from your response that you would support the elimination of the vice laws that are the foundation of this type of enforcement? That all perverts be assured that they face no risk of apprehension if they engage in these activities in public places such as airport restrooms?
Just curious and seeking clarification of your position.
I really did not mean to pun it.:)
I did not say he was innocent as a fact, just innocent until proven guilty.
What is your source for the statement that the Senator had priors?
Yea but he pled guilty... No one forced him to plead guilty and that’s the nail in the coffin right there.
I would like for him to fight this too.
He is 65 isn’t he? A lifetime of work?
Sometimes when those who are supposed to support you, do what has been done to this man, one loses heart.
There is something very ugly about this. Amongst ourselves. Very ugly, very disturbing, very primitive.
I cannot blame him, an old man,for not fighting. I feel the very same way about things at times.
THe cop was peepiing at the Senator and saying the Senator was peeping at him.
What witness saw the peeping. Nobody. But a peeping cop who saw eyes and said “My God, he is peeping at me”
Laughable.
How many times must we say he pled guilty to either intentionally or unknowingly causing resentment or alarm to another person. He did not plead to solicitation or any sexual offense.
Have you intentionally or unintentionally caused resentment in another person?
Think about it. He might have caused someone to resent him!! This is a crime??
Muslims pray in airport gate areas, act weird, have us all in knots. Do they get arrested for causing us resentment or alarm??
This is utterly unbelievable and you believe it. Read the plea and tell me where this man admitted to anything we don’t do daily!!!!!!
Yes I have listened to the tape and yes I do remember Anita Hill and it’s very obvious, listening to the tape, that he is trying to talk his way out of a jam. That usually works for politicians.
He was not being blackmailed to go on his way. He is a US Senator. He was in no danger of being held on a solicitation charge. He would have to be extremely stupid to plead guilty to any charge in that circumstance, if he were innocent, and if he really is that stupid he sure doesn’t belong in the senate. In any case, it’s up to the voters in Idaho to decide if he stays or goes.
The only ugly thing I see is men having anonymous sex in public bathrooms. It's sad, ugly and disturbing that we need to hire cops to stop men from doing that. If I had to listen to men having sex in that bathroom, I would certainly report it and certainly be glad that the cops were in there trapping and busting people to make them stop.
I cannot blame him, an old man,for not fighting. I feel the very same way about things at times.
Not fighting is true. He is old and perhaps (however extremely unlikely), the conspiracy theory suggested above is true and the Senator was brought down by corrupt gay leftists.
There's only one more explanation which is that the bathroom cops are prosecuting anybody they feel like (or at least this cop was) and it he just happened to trap a Senator. If he snagged a businessman it would have never made any news show anywhere. If that was the case and the Senator was truly innocent, I don't believe he would have used the plea-like language that he did. It didn't sound like the protestations of an innocent man to me.
What I heard on the tape was a man who was busted trying whatever weasel wording he could to get out of it.
No...my understanding is that he was claiming that he couldn't have used his left hand to reach under the right wall like he did. But of course, a month and a half later he admitted to the charges, so it doesn't really matter.
Uh, yes it is. He didn't even enter an Alford plea...it was a straight GUILTY plea, right under the language clearly and explicitly stating it. He would never have tried to change his plea if it hadn't gotten out.
Yes. Well, a digital audio presentation of it, hosted at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20467347/.
The Senator sat on the toilet and reached down to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor. Didnt say it was toilet paper [...]
Did you listen to the audio? He clearly says toilet paper at 4:48 into the clip. It's on page 4 of the transcript also accessible at the URL above:
DK: Okay. And then with the hand. Um, how many times did you put your hand under the stall?
LC: I don't recall. I remember reaching down once. There was a piece of toilet paper back behind me and picking it up. [sic]
If you want to rewrite the Constitution and change the way the justice system works, you're free to try to do so. But the way it works now is that the policeman charges the alleged perpetrator with a crime. The person can either plead guilty or dispute the charge. The police officer explained the choices...and the Senator chose to plead guilty to two charges. He could have chosen to contest it...nobody forced him to plead guilty!
Oh wait... I listened to the audio again....WOW! I didn't hear that before...
Wow. If you listen closely to the tape, you hear them implanting the device that prevents him from going to court and defending himself against the charges like an innocent person! </sarc>
BTW, I am really quite intrigued by the cajungirl justice system. I guess one just says, "I didn't do it" and you're free to go! After all, it would be just TERRIBLE if we allowed people to defend themselves in court! Court is such a terrible thing!
Funny thing...in my world, the court is what one has as an option to dispute charges. It's for the protection of the innocent.
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