McConnell suggests Craig may serve out the rest of his term

September 5, 2007

The twists and turns are coming quickly on the Larry Craig story. In the latest news, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.), who just last week said the charges against Craig were “unforgivable,” told reporters today that he’s spoken to Craig and discussed the Idaho Republican’s plan to return to the chamber.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) intends to try and overturn his conviction in an airport sex sting and if he is cleared, serve out the rest of his term, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday.

McConnell said he spoke with Craig by phone on Wednesday morning where Craig told him his plan. Craig announced last Saturday that he intends to resign from the Senate on September 30th. Craig would have been up for re-election next year.

McConnell said the case has already been referred to the Senate Ethics Committee and that any further matter on the case would have to come from them.

McConnell, who just yesterday seemed to have no idea that Craig was reconsidering his announced resignation, reiterated his belief that Craig made the decision last weekend to step down, but today seemed to be wavering a bit.

As Josh Marshall asked, “Okay, Sen. McConnell has now sanctioned Sen. Craig’s bizarre decision to recant his guilty plea and his resignation. What’s Sen. Craig got on Mitch McConnell?”

It’s not an unreasonable question. After all, in the course of a few days, McConnell has gone from saying Craig is a disgrace to saying Craig could rejoin the Senate GOP caucus if he can have the charges in Minneapolis resolved by Sept. 30.

We know what might have changed Craig’s mind about his future, but what led to McConnell’s change?

Here’s exactly what McConnell told reporters this afternoon:

MCCONNELL: I heard from Sen. Craig this morning. He called me to give me an update on where he is in order to dispel, as he put it, any confusion that might exist with regard to his intention.

So let me relate to you his comment — he said that he is going to try to get the case in Minneapolis dismissed, that if he is unable to have that disposed of prior to Sept. 30, it is his intention to resign from the Senate as he expressed last Saturday. If he is able to get he case favorably disposed of in Minneapolis it would be his intention to come back to the Senate, to deal with the ethics committee case that he knows he will have, and to try to finish his term.

So whatever confusion may have been created in the last few days, as of this morning that is his view about where he is headed.

As Greg Sargent explained, even this course of action is a little vague: “Is Craig hoping that if the plea is withdrawn that a judge will toss the case based on some legal argument? If Craig is forced to go to trial on the charges, will he resign before trial, since the case is unlikely to be resolved by the end of this month? If it does go to trial past Sept. 30 and things look positive for him, will Craig say that he’s still not resigning?”

For that matter, when McConnell alludes to Craig “finishing his term,” is there some kind of understanding that Craig will not seek re-election next year?

And what of the Senate Ethics Committee investigation? If Craig can resolve the disorderly-conduct charge in Minneapolis, what would the committee investigate? A non-existent misdemeanor charge unrelated to the senator’s official responsibilities?

The nice thing about the Craig scandal last week was its efficiency. Learn about it Monday, hear a press statement Tuesday, hear calls for resignation Wednesday, see the resignation on Saturday. Piece of cake.

Now, it looks like this is a scandal that is just getting started.

I’m a little confused as to why you seem to think any of this indicates that Craig “has something” on McConnell. McConnell was just repeating what Craig has told him of Craig’s intentions– McConnell has no authority to force Craig out of the Senate even if he wanted to do so. So how exactly has he “sanctioned” anything?

  • One question: Does Mitch McConnel think everyone who pleads guilty to a crime and then changes their mind should get to go back and challenge their convictions, or is this another case of IOKIYAR?

    Just curious.

  • Dandy by me. Every day it stays in the news cycle is another day they’ll recap the whole sorry affair for the readers, keeping it fresh in everyone’s memory and embarrassing the Gay Old Party further. I just wish they’d stop calling it a “sting”. A sting is when you are looking for one specifc individual and have set a trap for him with a situation in which he is likely to participate. If you’re just sitting in the john at the airport waiting for some guy to come on to you, that’s not a sting. Calling it one plays to Craig’s contention of entrapment.

  • Wonder if the phrase “Republicans in disarray” will be making its way into news reports…or if anyone will suggest that perhaps the GOP moved just a little too fast to broom Craig into the political dustpan and out of the way?

    There’s an irony here that I think the GOP is probably not appreciating – that in their haste to get rid of this guy, their continued acceptance of people like Vitter and Jerry Lewis and Rick Renzi and others makes them two-faced, self-serving and hypocritical. And in a move that will not repair that hypocrisy, by perhaps “allowing” Craig to serve out his term, they are apparently thinking that this washes their dumb moves clean, and permits them to continue to tolerate the ethical and moral transgressions and allegations of all the others.

    Maybe Tom DeLay is in charge of directing responses to GOP ethics issues…

  • Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) intends to try and overturn his conviction

    Ah yes, the famous Fingers Crossed! Defense.

    WTF? Anyone up for a road trip to Minn? I want to see the judge’s face when his lawyer tries to argue that his client has the right to revoke his guilty plea.

    Also, what Mark said. Especially about the sting, especially since the time to claim entrapment was BEFORE the stinking guilty plea.

  • There have been the same sort of rumors about Craig and McConnell for years now. But you didn’t hear that from me.

  • Well it was entrapment, and Craig should have fought it while he could. But he didn’t. Because he’s basically stupid, aside from being a closet case.

    I think the more play this gets the more the good GOP looks like the hypocrites we know them to be, and if Craig does go back into the Senate to serve out his term won’t it be fun to see who embraces him.

  • If the thought of Mitch McChinless having sex with anyone isn’t distasteful enough, I think he’s gay as well. It’s a toss-up whether the GOP has more skeletons or gays in their closet.

  • Yes no yes no yes no. If it’s not Craig’s guilty – not guilty plea, then it’s Bush’s strategy in Iraq.

    These guys are pathetic.

    I wish all gays would come out of the closet and get over self-loathing. Our world would be a better place.

  • or is this another case of IOKIYAR?

    IOKIYAR.

    Simple answers, simple questions, yadda yadda.

    Actually, this reminds more than a bit of the Foley case last year. The obvious course was to follow Foley’s departure with a resignation by Hastert, who was implicated as either knowing or being in a position where he should have known about Foley’s trolling among the pages. Yet they just couldn’t make themselves do it; Hastert stayed in place, letting the scandal metastasize, leading to the November debacle. Now once again the obvious thing is to cut Craig loose, but since he’s a member of the old boy’s club also known as the U.S. Senate, McConnell can’t quite bring himself to do the deed.

  • My DH watches the news on TV, I read mine via blogs, and then we trade the best tidbits. Weirdly, he reports that the MSM never picked up on the “Craig’s Gov is a Rep, Vitter’s is a Dem, so one can be replaced and the other not” part. It was like a lightbulb being turned on, when I told him it was all over the blogosphere… Even though he tries to keep himself informed, this explanation never occured to him (it didn’t to me, either, but I got the blogs’ help )… It’s instances like that, which make me realise just how deficient MSM can be in “illuminating” the voters, even those who care…

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