Group files complaint against Craig; statement from senator soon to come

28 Aug 2007 // Idaho Values Alliance executive director Bryan Fischer urged people to pray for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig and his family, but also called for his resignation if allegations that he engaged in lewd behavior in a Minneapolis airport restroom are true.

"There are disturbing questions raised by the police report that the senator needs to address in full, so that Idahoans will have all the information they need to make an informed judgment about what happened and how it reflects on Sen. Craig's fitness to continue in public office," Fischer said in a Tuesday press release. "If the senator did indeed engage in the behavior to which he pled guilty, then the appropriate thing for him to do is to resign from office."

A nonprofit legal watchdog group filed a complaint today with the Senate ethics committee against U.S. Sen. Larry Craig asking for an investigation into whether he violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.

Craig's office said the senator will respond soon to the controversy surrounding his arrest at a Minneapolis airport in June for lewd conduct.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington executive director Melanie Sloan called on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to immediately begin an investigation. "If pleading guilty to charges stemming from an attempt to solicit an undercover officer in a public restroom is not conduct that reflects poorly upon the Senate, what is?" Sloan said.

A Craig spokesman this morning said his office was trying to figure out the best way to respond to questions about the arrest. Craig pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct but later said his actions were misinterpreted by an airport police officer. According to police reports,Craig made sexual advances to the officer in an airport men's room.

"We're trying to put together the best way to do that," Craig spokesman Sid Smith said Tuesday morning about how the senator would respond to the issue. "We'll send out a little bit of word in a little while."