Larry Craig: Toe-Tapping In An Airport Restroom Is A Legitimate Senate Activity

Lawyers for former GOP Sen. Larry Craig will argue tomorrow before a federal court that his activities in that Minnesota airport restroom were a legitimate part of his job as a U.S. Senator. Seriously. The Federal Election Commission has charged Craig with illegally using $216,000 in campaign funds in his attempt to have his tearoom toe-tapping guilty plea withdrawn.

“Craig was arrested for purely personal conduct unrelated to his duties as a federal officeholder,” FEC attorneys argued in a legal brief, adding that “nothing about his officials duties caused him to engage in that personal conduct in the airport restroom, or to subsequently plead guilty, or to thereafter try to withdraw that guilty plea.” Craig’s attorneys, in their own legal briefs, counter that Craig was “engaged in official, Senate-sponsored travel” at the time of his arrest. While stressing that “they do not claim that using a restroom while traveling is strictly ‘official’ conduct,” the defense attorneys insist that the arrest and subsequent litigation “directly implicated” his public office.

Craig is now a lobbyist for coal mining and timber companies. (Via Mike Rogers)