Sen. Craig's Lawyer To Senate: Back Off
One of Sen. Larry Craig's lawyers said Wednesday the Senate has no business looking into the conduct of one of its own following Craig's guilty plea in connection with an airport men's room sex sting.
An unbroken line of precedents dating back 220 years makes clear the Senate does not consider misdemeanor private conduct to be a fit subject of inquiry, Washington attorney Stan Brand asserted after aides to Craig said the senator is reconsidering his decision to resign.
"We ought to seek to have the committee dismiss this outright," Brand said of a Senate ethics panel's investigation. "The Republican leadership called for an ethics investigation that had nothing to do with his office," Brand said on NBC's "Today" show.
Craig says he may still fight for his Senate seat, a spokesman says - if the lawmaker can clear his name with the Senate ethics panel and a Minnesota court.
"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore that the only thing he could do was resign," Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
"We're still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we're able to stay in the fight - and stay in the Senate," Smith said.
The Republican lawmaker, who has represented Idaho for 27 years, announced Saturday that he intended to resign, but CBS News correspondent Chip Reid reported that privately he was sending out a very different message.
In fact, just minutes before that press conference, he mistakenly called a wrong number and left a recorded message obtained by the newspaper Roll Call and confirmed by CBS News to be the voice of the senator.
"Yes, Billy, this is Larry Craig calling. You can reach me on my cell. Arlen Specter is now willing to come out in my defense, arguing that it appears by all that he knows that I've been railroaded ...," Craig is recorded as saying. "...We've reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on September 30."Hear Craig Mull Reconsidering Resignation
The call was apparently intended for Martin, an aide to the attorney said Wednesday. In it, Craig asked him to hold a news conference later Saturday and "make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with."
"I think it would help drive the story that I'm willing to fight, that I've got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape - has that potential," Craig said.
Martin later Saturday issued a written statement on Craig's behalf but did not hold a news conference. His aide said Martin did not receive the senator's voice mail.
Roll Call said it obtained the voice message from the person whose number was apparently misdialed. The newspaper did not identify the recipient but said it was a Washington, D.C., resident who is not involved in politics.
On Tuesday, Specter, R-Pa., senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested Craig's GOP colleagues who pressured him last week to resign should re-examine the facts surrounding his arrest.
"The more people take a look at the situation, there may well be second thoughts," said Specter, a former prosecutor. If Craig had not pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and instead demanded a trial, "I believe he would have been exonerated," Specter said.
In Washington, D.C., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman and the senatorial campaign committee had no immediate comment on Craig reconsidering.
Craig, 62, pleaded guilty Aug. 1 to a reduced charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct following his June 11 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. But he contended throughout last week he had done nothing wrong and said his only mistake was pleading guilty.
Dana Perino, White House deputy press secretary, said Wednesday she'd heard news reports that Craig was reconsidering his resignation. "I don't think that our views have changed," she said, "but of course this is the senator's decision, the senator's seat."
Craig has hired a high-powered crisis management team including Billy Martin, the lawyer for Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in his dogfighting case, and Brand.
Before Craig announced his intent to resign at month's end, McConnell called Craig's actions "unforgivable" and Senate colleagues John McCain of Arizona and Norm Coleman of Minnesota said Craig should resign.
Republican Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter has not named Craig's successor and hasn't said when he will.
Craig has won support from his family, including his three children, whom he adopted after marrying their mother, the former Suzanne Scott, in 1983. Jay Craig, 33, told The Associated Press that he, his brother, Michael Craig, 38, and his sister, Shae Howell, 36, spoke candidly with their father about what happened in Minnesota.
"Our conclusion was there was no wrongdoing there," Jay Craig said. "He was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time when this sting operation was going on."