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."
...homosexual activists knock at your door, soliciting funds for their cause du jour.
&&
Eww! They don’t do that, do they?
No. It’s SOLICITING a sex act.
Except that Craig was not wrongly accused. So your point is moot.
“This man is being tried and convicted and sentenced on this thread in a reflex manner that is disturbing.”
What part of “he pleaded guilty” don’t you understand?
Would you let a cop intimidate you in this same circumstance?
No we are not. Larry Craig plead guilty.
Agreed, and now he's trying to weasel out of it. Typical Dem.......
Who lays title in a “V” pattern?
One side is a mirror image of the other!
It’s not just the angle... the entire picture is a copy-and-paste mirror image. It’s the same pair of feet, flipped horizontally, with the pants color tweaked and a couple of minor edits to make it look different.
Just finished reading through a pile of stuff. What's most interesting is the claim by one gay public sex activist (yup, there's a bunch of 'em who advocate this stuff) that one of the MSP cops likes to put his foot on top of yours and if you lean down to see what's up, he busts you.
Sounds remarkably like what Larry Craig was saying ~ note that he said the cop solicited him, not the other way around.
Which means, of course, that LC knew what the old foot on foot thing meant (which is a tad more complex than just toe tapping, and far more obscure a signal than most would think) ~ guar-an-tee I'd be hollering and kicking some puke put his foot on mine under a stall wall, but that's just me. LC understood that as the signal ~ if the gay public sex advocate's warning was correct.
Which means...... well, it means LC knew the signal that gay cruisers had been warned about ....... which is why he referred to it as "you solicited me" to the cop.
Which means..... well, it means LC knows.
Just about everybody else on these Freeper threads didn't know!
Looks like ol' Larry ought to be saying bye-bye pretty soon.
I guess bathroom sex just isn’t what it used to be.
What article or context was that ABC stall photo in originally?
I love the fact that your toe tapping music link also has a “ Bikini Babes” section. Well Done!
Also: of course he’s lying, he’s a politician and his lips are moving.
The cop apparently lied. He said that Craig ran his left (far) hand along the bottom of the stall. Why would a right handed person do that? And where did his feet (which the copper followed so closely) go? But the cop claimed “I saw your wedding ring”; which was right in his line of sight during the interview subsequently.
Then, the cop says “hey, that’s all I expect from the hood”. Apparently, the cop is a sleeze, looking for a collar.
So we have a cop, who moves his foot towards a person, who had the nerve to see if a stall is open. The cop bumps his foot, then claims the man reached across his body to run his hand along a stall bottom. And, apparently putting your bag in front of you makes you a suspect.
Said cop allows him to plead to a misdemeanor.
Well, Craig may have a checkered past. And he will resign. But this cop appears to be lying.
I think Craig should quit stalling.
Nonsense.
Thanks I came close to spitting my drink.
Thanks. That was cool.
Apparently, from what we know, by the cop.
We should be grateful to Craig’s stupidity.
1. His idiocy of not hiring a laywer means no foley scandal.
2. His lack of inteligence in dealing with a crisis provides a darwin moment for clearing the Republican political gene pool.
3. He was caught now instead of caught during election season.
He pled to disorderly conduct.
did you listen to the tape. Did you read some of the statements about offendors.
Did you know that putting your roller bag against the inside door of the stall is a sign you are a sex offender? That was part of suspiciousness. Now you tell me where you put your roller bag.
This is a very muddled arrest of an older man who was clear in his denials of any intent to proposition anyone. I think he wanted it to go away so he took the misdemeanor plea.
And the cop was a jerk carried away with his power.
I am easily intimidated by cops as I know what power freaks they can be. A member of my family was intimidated in an awful way by a state trooper. My Father always said, let them intimidate you otherwise you will be in bigger trouble than you can imagine.
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