The writing has been on the wall for a couple of weeks, but today Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) officially reversed his pledge to resign and announced he would stay in the Senate. Following today’s defeat in Minneapolis in undoing his guilty plea, Craig released a press statement:
“I am extremely disappointed with the ruling issued today. I am innocent of the charges against me. I continue to work with my legal team to explore my additional legal options.
“I will continue to serve Idaho in the United States Senate, and there are several reasons for that. As I continued to work for Idaho over the past three weeks here in the Senate, I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively.
“Over the course of my three terms in the Senate and five terms in the House, I have accumulated seniority and important committee assignments that are valuable to Idaho, not the least of which are my seats on the Appropriations Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. A replacement would be highly unlikely to obtain these posts.”
He added, however, that he will not seek re-election next year, a race he was certain to lose if he even tried to compete. “I hope this provides the certainty Idaho needs and deserves,” he concluded.
I think it’s safe to say Republican leaders throughout the establishment will not take this news well. As Greg Sargent noted, “[A]ccording to CNN, GOP leaders abruptly canceled a press conference they had scheduled for today,” presumably so they wouldn’t have to listen to questions about Craig.
But what can they do about it?
Reiterating a point we discussed the other day, it must be terribly frustrating for the Senate Republican leadership, knowing there’s not much they can do to Craig to just go away.
The party can take away his committee assignments, but that’s already happened and it didn’t have much of an effect. Officials can withhold re-election campaign funds next year, but in Craig’s case, that probably won’t matter. Republican leaders can pretend he doesn’t exist, stop returning his calls, and no longer let him sit at the cool kids’ table in the Senate dining room, but Craig seems immune to peer pressure at this point. They could try to expel him from the chamber, but they don’t have the votes.
GOP leaders do have one tool left — an ethics committee investigation — and the party will apparently use it to make Craig absolutely miserable. From a WaPo report on Sunday:
Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch up the public humiliation by seeking an open ethics hearing on the restroom scandal that enveloped Craig last month.
The Senate hearing would examine the original charges in Craig’s case, including the allegation of “interference with privacy,” for peeping into the bathroom stall occupied by an undercover police officer. One senior Republican aide imagined “witnesses, documents, all in front of the klieg lights.” The committee also could look for “a pattern of conduct” — which means combing court records in other locales to discover whether Craig had prior arrests that haven’t come to light.
What do you suppose the chances are Craig has faced related, still-unknown charges elsewhere?
Either way, just when it seemed the Craig scandal might die down, it’s major news again.