Former Escort Service Owner Pens Tell-All: Sen. Larry Craig Liked His Hookers Butch

Former DC escort service owner Henry Vinson pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges back in 1990 and served five years in a minimum security prison. Twenty years later he's penned a tell-all memoir in which he claims that then-Rep. Larry Craig preferred that his rent boys be "quite masculine."

Vinson employed up to 20 escorts on a given night in this “extremely lucrative” business. “The business was very successful.” Not wanting to pin down a number to his profits, Vinson did mention a frequent customer who would spend $20,000 a month on his escorts. “Of course, in the ’80s that was a lot of money.” Rich in the kind of sordid drama one might expect, Vinson’s book names names. Then-U.S. Rep. Larry Craig of Idaho, he writes, “became a frequent flier of my escort service” and “preferred escorts who were quite masculine.” Although he claims he received many threats of blackmail from many of his powerful clients, Vinson’s business was in full operation until the Secret Service raided his home, his sister’s home and his mother’s home in 1989. And the rest is history.

As you surely recall, in 2007 Larry Craig was busted for soliciting in the men's room of the Minneapolis airport. He did not seek reelection to the Senate in 2008 and is now a lobbyist for the oil industry. Last year Craig was ordered to repay over $240K in campaign funds that he had used in his soliciting defense. (Tipped by JMG reader Javier)

RELATED: Last month Henry Vinson penned an essay for the Advocate in which he mentions that his RICO defense attorney was current Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren. According to Vinson, Van Susteren failed in her attempt to force the government to release the full list of his clients.

Court Orders Former Sen. Larry Craig To Pay Up Over Toe-Tapping Toilet Sting

A federal court yesterday ordered former GOP Sen. Larry Craig to pay the government $242,000 in campaign funds that he used to pay lawyers after being busted toe-tapping in a Minneapolis airport restroom. Craig has argued that he was entitled to use the funds because was traveling on official Senate business at the time of his arrest.

Loop Fans may recall our prior analyses of his trip to the bathroom. Best we were able to determine at the time — judging from what sources told us were the usual arrival and departure gates for his flights — Craig may have passed not one, not two, not three but four bathrooms at the airport along the way before choosing the very one that an airport official called “the biggest hotspot” for sexual encounters. But we digress. In the current legal action, Craig argued that Senate rules permit reimbursement for any costs while on official travel. But the Federal Election Commission filed suit, saying Craig converted the campaign funds for personal use in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District agreed. “The Court finds that defendants violated the FECA when they converted campaign funds to pay for legal expenses related to Senator Craig’s efforts to withdraw his guilty plea, which was a personal matter that was not connected to the Senator’s duties as an officeholder,” Jackson wrote.

During his 28 years in Congress, Craig voted against LGBT rights every time. He left office in January 2009 with a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. He is now a lobbyist.

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)

Outed Homophobes: The Supercut

Via Towleroad, here's a compilation of some of the most notorious homophobes who have been outed in recent years.

Former Sen. Larry Craig Says He Was In That Men's Room On Federal Business

Former GOP Sen. Larry Craig is trying to wriggle out of charges that he used campaign funds to defend himself after his 2007 bust in that Minneapolis airport men's room.

Craig is hoping to avoid repaying $217,000 in campaign funds the Federal Election Commission claims he misused to defend himself. The FEC sued Craig in June in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging he converted the campaign money to personal use by spending it on his legal defense after he was accused of soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom. The commission argues Craig's defense had no connection to his campaign for federal office. Craig counters that money tied to his airport bathroom trip was neither for personal use or his campaign, but falls under his official, reimbursable duties as senator because he was traveling between Idaho and the nation's capital for work. He cites a U.S. Senate rule in which reimbursable per diem expenses include all charges for meals, lodging, hotel fans, cleaning, pressing of clothing — and bathrooms. “Not only was the trip itself constitutionally required, but Senate rules sanction reimbursement for any cost relating to a senator's use of a bathroom while on official travel,” wrote Andrew Herman, Craig's lawyer in Washington, D.C., in documents filed Thursday.

Following his arrest, Craig resigned then unresigned and finished out his term. Today he is a DC lobbyist for the oil industry that he once regulated as a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

FLASHBACK: Here's Craig's famous "I am not gay" press conference.

(Tipped by JMG reader Frank)

HomoQuotable - Mike Rogers

"The site has accomplished much in its seven years. Congressmen and Senators who were first reported on here are no longer in office. Political operatives who worked against us are now on our team. The mainstream media has been educated and it’s no longer considered off-limits to report on the hypocrisy of closeted, anti-gay politicians. (Outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer and Superstaion WGN now take BlogActive reporting as a primary source — times sure have changed.) What a wild ride it has been. Now it’s time to close a chapter on the site and to move in a new direction. I will no longer be blogging at BlogActive." - Outing kingpin Mike Rogers, announcing the end of the site that terrorized political closet cases since 2004.

Take a bow, Mr. Rogers.

Former Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig Is Trolling Halls Of Congress As A Lobbyist

Now that his two year post-Senate "cooling off" period is over, totally not gay toe-tapper Larry Craig is once again trolling the halls of Congress, but this time it's as a lobbyist.

Craig's firm, New West Strategies, wouldn't actually confirm lobbying was now part of his portfolio. "I didn't say that," said Mike Ware, a principle at New West, adding, with emphasis, that "the cooling off period IS over." But the mere spotting of Craig back on the Hill was enough to raise alarms from those good-government groups who see danger in the coercive influence former members can have on old colleagues. "This is sort of the way of Washington right now. It is not the exception to the rule but more or less a rule itself," said Dave Levinthal, Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics. "When you get out of federal office you think about how you can cash in that experience you gained from working in the public sector by going into the private sector."

Former members of the House and Capitol Hill senior staffers are only required to wait one year before that revolving door grants their corporate clients access to the very legislation their new emissaries once authored. According to the above-linked story, so far this year 90 former members of Congress and former Hill staffers have already registered as lobbyists.

Michelangelo Signorile: Out Them ALL

Activist and SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile says that it's time that the gay community stops cloaking anti-gay politicians that are known to us to be gay themselves. Writing for the Advocate, Signorile uses the recent example of California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, who was outed by West Sacramento's openly gay mayor on Facebook, although few took notice.

West Sacramento’s Mayor Cabaldon notes that unnamed gay and lesbian lobbyists and other prominent LGBT people knew Ashburn was gay and protected him. He told me that several of these individuals angrily complained to him after his Facebook update and after he criticized Ashburn in the media following the state senator’s arrest. Those who protected Ashburn were selling out the community. In that sense, they’re just as guilty as Ashburn. Every gay person who knows the truth about closeted antigay politicans has a responsibility to speak up, as Mike Rogers does so fearlessly. This is no longer an issue that is debatable. No one’s privacy deserves respect when that person is working against our rights, and none of us should be complicit in keeping the secrets of these detestable individuals. The message has to be sent loud and clear: You are either with us or you are against us.

To paraphrase NYC's MTA, if you see something, motherfucking SAY something!

Bryan Safi: Tips To Closeted Politicians

Larry Craig Drops Appeal, Minneapolis Int'l Beefs Up T-Room Security

Totally not-gay former Sen. Larry Craig has dropped his appeal of his already-pleaded-guilty restroom trolling charge.

A lawyer for former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig says they won't ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to void his conviction in an airport bathroom sex sting. Minneapolis attorney Tom Kelly said today they concluded that the state Supreme Court would not accept a petition for further review of the case, so it would be a futile exercise. He says that means the legal wrangling in the case is over. Today was the 30-day deadline for Craig to ask the high court to review a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision that went against him.

It was a bullshit charge that he should have never copped to in the first place.

No Appeal For Larry Craig

A Minnesota court has refused to allow former Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig to withdraw his guilty plea from his sex-sting arrest in the Minneapolis airport. Craig responds:

"I am extremely disappointed by the action of the Minnesota Court of Appeals," Craig (R-ID) said in a statement. "I disagree with their conclusion and remain steadfast in my belief that nothing criminal or improper occurred at the Minneapolis airport. I maintain my innocence, and currently my attorneys and I are reviewing the decision and looking into the possibility of appealing. I would like to thank all of those who have continued to support me and my family throughout this difficult time."

While we all took great delight in the downfall of a self-loathing homosexual Senator who repeatedly opposed gay rights legislation, we must continue to protest these entrapment arrests.

Buh-Bye, Larry Craig

This may be the last you see of Sen. Larry Craig. Here's a short bit of his final address to the Senate yesterday.

It was just last year that Sen. Larry E. Craig riveted political Washington with his arrest in an airport sex sting and subsequent public declaration, “I am not gay.” On Thursday, there was much less hubbub — in fact, none at all — as the Idaho Republican delivered his farewell speech on the Senate floor. In a largely empty chamber, Craig talked at length about energy independence and the importance of increasing domestic oil production. A couple of his colleagues said nice things about his legislative work. He said nice things about them in return.

And then it was done.

Goodbye, Larry. On behalf of myself and bloggers worldwide, thanks for the laughs.

Tap, Tap (Tappin' In The Tearoom)

Drag queen Candy Samples gives us a preview of the Republican convention.

The Stall Of Fame

Sen. Larry Craig's world-famous airport men's room stall is about to be back in the news.

Thousands of members of the international media will have to walk past it when they land at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul at the end of the summer.

Many will feel obligated to stop and file a story.

For the party that bills itself as stronger on family values than the Democrats, it likely will prove an unwelcome distraction. The parade of airport tourists asking for directions to the stall (right at the Chili's, left at the Royal Zino shoeshine) has died down a bit since last summer, but is expected to pick up as the GOP and the press arrive in town in late August, whether or not Craig himself shows up as a delegate.

We've Got Your Family Values Right Here

(Courtesy of Jesus' General via Pam Spaulding.)

You Just Have To Laugh

Check out the co-sponsors of a new federal "Marriage Protection Amendment".

Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).

Craig, who entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, was detained and charged for attempting to engage in sexual activity with a male undercover police officer. His arrest and plea became public two months later. At that time, Craig attempted to withdraw his plea and enter a new plea of not guilty. To date, his efforts have been denied by the courts.

In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam. With a Democratic controlled Congress it is unlikely the bill will be brought up for a vote in either the Senate or House of Representatives.

A tearoom troll and a diaper fetishist hooker patron, protecting the sanctity of marriage. And these guys think they have the moral high ground necessary to amend the U.S. Constitution, the most hallowed document in our history. Again, you just have to laugh.

(Via -PageOneQ)

Craig Replacement Could Be Pro-Life

Literally. A nutjob running for Larry Craig's seat has legally changed his name to Pro-Life Richardson.

A 66-year-old Idaho strawberry farmer, formerly known after a previous name change as Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, is now, simply, "Pro-Life." "I think it's just and I think it's proper to have Pro-Life on the ballot," Pro-Life told the Idaho Press-Tribune. "If I save one baby's life, it's worth it."

Pro-Life made the change after an unsuccessful run for governor under the Constitution Party in 2006, hoping this time to skirt the state policy that prevented him from using what was then his middle name as his name on the ballot, as the state considered it not a name, but a slogan. Officials must now recognize Pro-Life's legal name. According to CBS News, Pro-Life will from now on run as an independent for the highest state office in each election every two years on a platform of advocating murder charges for abortion doctors and the women who seek their services.

Murder charges for abortion doctors and their patients? Idaho has the death penalty, so I think this guy might need to change his name again.

Larry Craig Keeps His Word (For Once)

Sen. Larry Craig is retiring. For real real.

Larry Craig (R-Idaho), encumbered by a scandal since last summer, did not file for reelection by his state’s deadline Friday, keeping a promise he made and officially marking the end of his congressional career. Craig’s political future has been in doubt since his arrest and guilty plea on disorderly conduct charges filed after an incident in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last June.

The three-term senator, who previously served five terms in the House, denied the charges that he solicited sex from an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation to crack down on alleged gay sexual liaisons in the airport’s bathrooms. Craig said he pleaded guilty in hopes of quelling a scandal, a decision he said he regretted.

The Sanctity Of Heterosexual Marriage

(Via - Dan Savage.)

The Jokes Write Themselves

Have you planned your summer yet?

For Immediate Release:
February 26, 2008

Craig Accepting Applications for Summer Interns
Deadline Quickly Approaching

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Idaho Senator Larry Craig is currently seeking intern applications for the summer term, which runs from May to August. The application deadline is March 15, however if more time is needed for the application process, please contact Senator Craig’s office for an extension. Craig offers paid internships within the Washington, D.C., office. Preference is given to Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors).

(Via - Slog.)