Larry Craig: a sexual history
Idaho Statesman - August 28, 2007 http://www.idahostatesman.com/273/story/143801.html
Men’s room arrest reopens questions about Sen. Larry Craig By Dan Popkey - dpopkey@idahostatesman.com
Sen. Larry Craig, who in May told the Idaho Statesman he had never
engaged in homosexual acts, was arrested less than a month later by
an undercover police officer who said Craig made a sexual advance
toward him in an airport men’s room.
The arrest at a Minnesota airport prompted Craig to plead guilty to
disorderly conduct earlier this month. His June 11 encounter with the
officer was similar to an incident in a men’s room in a Washington,
D.C., rail station described by a Washington-area man to the Idaho
Statesman. In that case, the man said he and Craig had sexual contact.
The Minnesota arrest was first reported Monday by Roll Call, a
Capitol Hill newspaper.
In an interview on May 14, Craig told the Idaho Statesman he’d never
engaged in sex with a man or solicited sex with a man. The Craig
interview was the culmination of a Statesman investigation that began
after a blogger accused Craig of homosexual sex in October. Over five
months, the Statesman examined rumors about Craig dating to his
college days and his 1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with
underage congressional pages.
The most serious finding by the Statesman was the report by a
professional man with close ties to Republican officials. The 40-year-
old man reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington’s Union
Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who
said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of
Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig “cruised” him for sex in 1994
at the REI store in Boise. The Statesman also explored dozens of
allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable.
Craig, 62, was elected to Congress in 1980. Should he win re-election
in 2008 and complete his term, he would be the longest-serving
Idahoan ever in Congress. His record includes a series of votes
against gay rights and his support of a 2006 amendment to the Idaho
Constitution that bars gay marriage and civil unions.
News about the June 11 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul
International Airport was reported on Roll Call’s Web site Monday.
According to police and court records obtained by Roll Call, Craig
pleaded guilty Aug. 8 to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in Hennepin
County District Court. He paid $575 in fines and fees. A 10-day jail
sentence was suspended and Craig received one year’s unsupervised
probation.
Craig on Monday denied any misconduct. “At the time of this incident,
I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions,”
he said in a written statement. “I was not involved in any
inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in
resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I
was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”
Craig, through his staff, declined to answer questions.
Craig resigns Romney post
On Monday afternoon, Craig resigned from his role as the U.S. Senate
co-chair of the Mitt Romney for president campaign. Monday night, the
Romney campaign canceled a visit to Boise scheduled for today by
Romney’s son, Josh.
Until Monday, the Statesman had declined to run a story about Craig’s
sex life, because the paper didn’t have enough corroborating evidence
and because of the senator’s steadfast denial.
In the hourlong May 14 interview, Craig was accompanied by his wife,
Suzanne. He specifically and generally denied ever engaging in any
homosexual conduct.
During that interview, the Statesman played Craig an audiotape of the
man claiming that he and Craig had sex in the Union Station restroom.
Like the Minnesota airport restroom, the Union Station restroom is
known as a place where men can find anonymous sex.
Craig denied the man’s account and said, “I am not gay and I have
never been in a restroom in Union Station having sex with anybody.
“There’s a very clear bottom line here,” Craig said. “I don’t do that
kind of thing. I am not gay, and I never have been.”
Craig’s accuser spoke to the Statesman on the condition he not be
named. The man said he was sure it was Craig he had oral sex with but
said he had no evidence other than his word.
Craig also denied the claims of the two other men that he made sexual
advances to them.
One man, who was considering pledging with Craig’s fraternity at the
U of I in 1967, said Craig took him to his room and made what the man
said he took to be an invitation to sex. Responding to that
allegation in May, Craig said, “I don’t hit on any men.”
Another man said that in November 1994 Craig “cruised” him at the REI
store in Boise. The man, who is gay, told the Statesman that Craig
stared at him in a sexually inviting way and followed him around REI
for a half-hour. Said Craig: “Once again, I’m not gay, and I don’t
cruise, and I don’t hit on men. I have no idea how he drew that
conclusion. A smile? Here is one thing I do out in public: I make eye
contact, I smile at people, they recognize me, they say, ‘Oh, hi,
Senator.’ Or, ‘Do I know you?’
“I’ve been in this business 27 years in the public eye here. I don’t
go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn’t
do it in Boise, Idaho! Jiminy!”
Undecided about re-election
On Aug. 9, the day after his guilty plea in Minnesota, Craig told the
Statesman he had yet to decide whether he would seek re-election in
2008. He served five terms in the House before he was elected to the
Senate. His third Senate term expires in January 2009. Lt. Gov. Jim
Risch has said he will likely run should Craig retire. Former
Democratic Rep. Larry LaRocco announced in April that he will run for
the Senate.
Craig said that he would announce his re-election plans by mid-
September. He said personal factors, including spending time with his
nine grandchildren, were weighing on the side of retirement. But he
also said he enjoyed his job and the benefits of seniority.
During the interview in May, Craig said his re-election or retirement
would not be influenced by accusations that he was gay. “If I’m going
to run from these kinds of stupid, false allegations after 27 years
in public life, having done a credible job, then I shouldn’t have
been there in the first place.”
Blogger makes claims
The Statesman began its inquiry last October, after a gay activist
blogger, Mike Rogers, published a claim that Craig had sex with men.
Rogers cited anonymous sources. Rogers believed he had the evidence
to nail a hypocritical Republican foe of gay rights, raise the din in
the Rep. Mark Foley scandal, and help the Democrats win the Congress.
Millions heard or read of Rogers’ claims. Amid anticipatory buzz from
Web sites like the liberal Wonkette, Rogers published his report at
blogactive.com Oct. 17. He also appeared on a liberal talk show in
100 radio markets. Mainstream media — including four Idaho
newspapers, the Washington Post, USA Today, MSNBC and Bill Maher on
HBO — spread the story widely.
But Statesman editor Vicki Gowler would not rely on Rogers’ anonymous
sources. Instead, she decided to investigate the widespread rumors
that date to 1982, when Craig pre-emptively denied involvement in a
gay sex scandal involving congressmen and underage pages.
During its investigation, the Statesman interviewed 300 people,
visited the ranch where Craig grew up, and made two trips to
Washington, D.C.
On May 12, two days before its interview with Craig, the Statesman
finally interviewed Rogers’ “best source,” the man who says he is
certain he had a brief sexual encounter with Craig at Union Station,
which is two blocks from Craig’s office. The man said the sex
occurred in two restrooms on a weekday afternoon. He estimated the
encounter lasted three or four minutes.
The man’s motive was twofold. A lifelong Republican, he recently had
re-registered as a Democrat because he’s angry with what he sees as
the GOP’s gay-bashing. Second, he was tired of Rogers picking on
congressional staffers and offered him the chance to “out” a senator.
The Washington-area man’s story has remained consistent, beginning
with his Aug. 9, 2004, e-mail to Mike Rogers: “I’ve hooked up with
Craig … why not out some actual members and not their staffers?”
That suggestion came shortly after Rogers launched his outing
campaign, prompted by his anger over the GOP election-year push for a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Craig voted for the
failed measure July 14, 2004. He also has opposed allowing gays or
lesbians in the military and voted against extending civil rights
protections to homosexuals in the workplace.
Craig told the Statesman in May that he doesn’t care about a person’s
sexual orientation. He said he had a homosexual staffer. “I hire
people based on their talent and their ability to produce,” he said.
Marriage should be between and man and a woman, Craig said. But he
said he supports unions between same-sex couples. “You can have a
civil union, but you can’t commandeer the institution of marriage.
That’s very special, religious, culturally, and you can’t go there.”
Last fall, however, after Rogers’ report, Craig issued a statement
saying he would vote for an amendment to the Idaho Constitution on
the November ballot that bans both gay marriage and civil unions.
In the May 14 interview, Craig and his wife listened to a four-minute
excerpt of the Statesman’s interview with the 40-year-old man who
first spoke to Rogers. At first, Craig objected to the man’s
anonymity, but agreed to listen. The man’s voice was disguised.
Craig said the man is an activist. “The gay movement, we know it for
what it is. It’s now aggressive and it’s liberal and it’s naming
people to try to put them in compromising, difficult situations.”
Suzanne Craig’s eyes reddened and filled with tears as she listened.
After her husband’s denial, she said, “I’m incensed that you would
even consider such a piece of trash as a credible source.”
To which Craig added, “Jiminy God!”
Before moving on to the next question, Craig turned to his wife and
said, “Sorry, Hon.”
Until Monday’s report, Craig was facing a lone credible accuser.
Rogers told the Statesman he had lost track of his other two sources,
who he said described encounters with the senator, one in Idaho and
one in Seattle. Rogers concedes he doesn’t know those two sources’
last names. “I was an amateur,” he told the Statesman.
The Statesman followed dozens of leads about alleged sexual partners.
Two prevalent rumors swirl around two men who are dead. The Statesman
has found no written record of sexual intimacy between those men and
Craig. Relatives of those men are dead, unaware of proof to
substantiate the rumors, or unreachable.
Two other alleged partners unequivocally denied having been intimate
with Craig. Other accounts are simply unfounded. Some were inconclusive.
There are, however, the two men who told the Statesman Craig made
passes at them. Craig denied those accounts in his May 14 interview.
The Page Scandal
Until the Mike Rogers report in October and the Roll Call story on
Monday, rumors about Craig were grounded in the 1982 congressional
page scandal. Craig denied involvement in 1982, but the timing of his
statement fueled rumors that lasted decades. Among them were that
Craig married shortly after the scandal to cover up his alleged
homosexuality.
Craig and the then-Suzanne Scott had their first date on Valentine’s
Day 1980, when Craig was making his first run for Congress. Craig
proposed six months after the scandal, on Suzanne’s birthday, Dec.
28, 1982. They married in July 1983.
About a year before the marriage, on June 30, 1982, 13.3 million
viewers of CBS News heard page Leroy Williams allege he had sex with
three House members when he was 17.
The following day, Craig issued a statement saying he’d received
calls from reporters saying they were going to publish his name in
connection with the scandal. His statement called the allegations
“part of a concerted effort at character assassination.”
“I have done nothing that I need to be either publicly or privately
ashamed of. I am guilty of no crime or impropriety, and I am
convinced that this is an effort to damage my personal character and
destroy my political career.”
Craig alone — among 535 members of Congress — issued such a
statement. In the news vacuum of the July 4 recess, the freshman
Republican was thrust into the national spotlight. A network
helicopter followed him to Jordan Valley, Ore., where he attended a
potluck for Southwest Idaho ranchers.
He told a national audience: “Persons who are unmarried as I am, by
choice or by circumstance, have always been the subject of innuendos,
gossip and false accusations. I think this is despicable.”
Before he hit the airwaves, Craig hosted a breakfast for his campaign
staff at the Owyhee Hotel to tell them what was about to happen. Brad
Hoaglun remembers the moment: “He was very matter-of-fact and
forthright. He said, ‘I want to tell you nothing in the story is
accurate.’”
“I was finishing up college. This was my first paid campaign, and I
can remember sitting there thinking, my gosh, what have I got myself
into? And, OK, do I believe Larry Craig? And I came quickly to the
conclusion that, yes, I do.”
Hoaglun went on to be an important GOP hand and was former Gov. Jim
Risch’s spokesman.
After the staff breakfast in 1982, Cheryl Miller, a top Craig
campaign aide, drove Craig to Jordan Valley in her silver Pontiac.
She said Craig liked to sing along to her 8-track tapes of country
western and gospel. It relaxed him. Despite the pressure, Craig’s
gift for campaigning was unaffected, Miller said. All who knew him
believed he’d been wrongly accused, she said.
Staffer John Keenan was on the next leg, from Boise to North Idaho.
“It really rattled our cages,” said Keenan, a Craig staffer from
1981-85. At a stop in Council, a crew from a second network
helicopter “stuck a microphone in his face. I was standing there,
just kind of amazed. I was so impressed, he handled it so well.”
During the drive, Craig told tales of his youth on the family ranch
24 long miles from Midvale, where he attended the one-room South
Crane School, became a champion orator and tussled with a cow that
stuck its head in his tent and took off running.
“He took comfort in telling us stories,” said Keenan. “He has a sense
of humor that he doesn’t reveal easily. Gosh, I was laughing my head
off.”
At the time, a top Craig staffer, Karmen Larson, said reporters from
CBS and The New York Post said they were going to name Craig,
prompting his denial. The CBS reporter on the story, John Ferrugia,
declined comment to the Statesman.
Craig says he ‘panicked’
But Peter Fearon, then with the New York Post, said he never said his
paper was preparing to name Craig. “No, no — it wasn’t ‘are you under
investigation?’ It was simply an inquiry: ‘Have you heard anything?
Who have you heard about? Have you heard any names mentioned? What’s
your reaction to this news?’
“The next thing I know, Larry Craig has issued a press release:
‘This isn’t me.’ Which I just thought was a bizarre and ultimately
very foolish thing to do.
“He was the only person going on the record anywhere,” Fearon said.
“And of course, when you do that, it’s like raw meat. He’s saying,
‘Nobody’s actually accusing, but it wasn’t me!’ It’s no wonder it’s
dogged him. He denied something that no one had accused him of.”
Four weeks later, page Williams recanted, saying he’d made up the
whole thing. A second page who had appeared on CBS, Jeffrey Opp, said
he’d exaggerated or misunderstood what he took to be sexual advances
from congressmen.
A six-month probe into sex charges was launched by the House ethics
committee. In December 1982, they exonerated those accused by
Williams and Opp.
The committee chastised CBS’s Ferrugia for planting “lurid tales of
sexual misconduct and homosexual prostitution in the Congress” in
Opp’s mind. Opp declined to speak to the Statesman for this story;
Williams did not reply to repeated inquiries.
Though his staff credits Craig for a cool head in 1982, he told the
Statesman on May 14 that he panicked.
“I was scared, plain and simple scared,” he said. “When you have
somebody walk into your office and make that kind of allegation and
tells me he’s gonna go to print — and I’m a freshman congressman and
go, ‘Oh my God!’”
Craig talks to FBI
Craig allowed the Statesman to review, but not copy, what he said
were an FBI report and a privately administered polygraph from 1982
regarding the page scandal.
Craig did not respond to requests to have the FBI verify the
authenticity of the FBI document. Craig also declined to sign a
waiver allowing the Statesman to review anything in his FBI file
regarding homosexuality.
The FBI document supplied by Craig describes a July 20, 1982, FBI
interview with Craig at the offices of his Washington law firm. Craig
requested the interview with the FBI and said reporters had
threatened to disclose allegations of homosexuality.
“Craig stated that he had never engaged in a homosexual relationship”
with Williams or Opp, the FBI report said. “Craig further indicated
that he has never engaged in a homosexual relationship with any person.”
The document says Craig told the FBI that he suspected that then-Rep.
Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., might be behind the allegations against
him. Opp was appointed by Schroeder. “Craig said that recent polls
indicate strong support for his re-election this fall, and he
perceives this as a slanderous campaign by the opposition party to
have him defeated,” said the report.
An attached document from a polygraph examiner hired by Craig said it
was the examiner’s opinion “that Congressman Craig is not a
homosexual and has since adulthood not engaged in homosexual acts of
any type.”
Craig also provided the Statesman military records to respond to a
rumor he left the Idaho National Guard because he was homosexual.
Craig was honorably discharged in 1972, after 20 months of a six-year
enlistment.
Had he been discharged for homosexual conduct, a different section of
the military code would have been cited, and he wouldn’t have
received an honorable discharge. Records show he was let go because
of a “physical disqualification,” although they do not specify the
reason. There is no physician’s report available, according to the
Pentagon and the Idaho Guard. Craig says his ailment was flat feet.
U of I days
Craig told the Statesman he was unaware of rumors about him being gay
going back to his college days. Craig had about 150 fraternity
brothers at Delta Chi during his U of I years.
The Statesman interviewed 41 of them. Of those 41, three said there
were jokes about him being effeminate and possibly gay. Most said
that had Craig been thought to be gay, he would have never become a
leader in the fraternity and the student body.
As president of Delta Chi, Craig secured a $100,000 loan to remodel
the fraternity house, instituted study hours, and blackballed members
for drug use. They called him “Mother Craig” for his officiousness.
After shedding 50 pounds the summer before college, he was elected
state president of the Future Farmers of America on his second try.
He also was student body president at U of I. Graduating in 1969, he
won the Donald R. Theophilus Outstanding Senior Award. Five years
later, at 28, he was elected to the state Senate. He’s been in public
office ever since.
Most of Craig’s college friends say he was disciplined, studious and
serious, even if he was awkward with women.
One woman who dated him off and on for a year asked not to be named,
but said, “I don’t imagine that he ever held my hand. He was into the
gotta-hold-the-door-for-the-woman sort of thing. But I always felt
like I was an accessory. I might as well have been his briefcase.”
Craig said he did sometimes invite women because a date was expected.
But he said he had a serious girlfriend in college; they split over
religious differences. He declined to name her.
Men Craig served with or under in Congress — Republicans Jim McClure,
Orval Hansen, George Hansen and Steve Symms and Democrats Richard
Stallings and Larry LaRocco — all said they have no credible evidence
of Craig being gay. The same goes for scores of former staffers. They
spoke to the Statesman before Monday’s news of Craig’s guilty plea.
McClure, whom Craig succeeded in the Senate, said Craig’s formal
manner of speaking has fueled rumors. Craig was taught by an old-
school orator — the late D.L. Carter of Weiser. The lessons served
Craig well, as he won state championships, attended two national
contests and filled his bedroom at the ranch with trophies.
Said McClure: “He was of the old oratorical school where you went in
and took each word and broke it into syllables and enunciated and all
of that. And that’s how that style came about, to project across a
full hall.”
Craig also took piano lessons in high school and was in the high
school choir.
“Larry’s speech patterns are very precise,” said McClure. “They’re
not what you expect from a rancher from Midvale. His speech patterns
say, ‘Hey, here’s a guy who’s a little different.’ And he is, he’s a
little different. But that doesn’t mean he’s homosexual for heaven’s
sakes! You have to jump from prejudice to suspicion to I don’t know
what to give the rumors any credibility.”
Neighbors weigh in
Last fall, Craig’s neighbors at a Washington marina expressed
disbelief at Rogers’ attempt to out him. Ed Johnson is an openly gay
man, former local elected official and has been an acquaintance and
neighbor of Craig’s off and on for 15 years. He is president of the
Gangplank Slipholders Association, a neighbor to the smaller Capital
Yacht Club, where Craig lives.
A Democrat, Johnson works for the American Humanists Association,
which he describes as “the godless, liberal, left-wing atheists.”
“If I thought there was truth to the rumor, I’d be first in line to
out him,” said Johnson, who agrees hypocritical public officials
should be exposed.
“But after 15 years in a close-knit community where everybody knows
everybody’s business, to be that clandestine and never have anything
said — it’s just hard to imagine. I mean, if somebody has a fight and
breaks up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, you know it the next day.”
Dan Popke