WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Federal Election Commission for using campaign funds to pay for his legal defense, arguing that he was on official travel when he was arrested in a sex-sting operation.
Craig, 67, said in a filing in federal court in Washington on Thursday that he was allowed to use campaign funds to pay legal fees incurred from a 2007 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport because he was on the way to Washington for a session of Congress. The travel triggered the Constitution’s clause immunizing federal lawmakers from arrest, according to the filing.
“Senator Craig was engaged in official, constitutionally mandated activity at the time of the incident,” Craig said in the filing.
Craig spent more than $200,000 in campaign funds in connection with his arrest, disorderly conduct guilty plea and subsequent efforts to withdraw that plea in Minnesota in 2007, the commission said in a lawsuit filed in June.
On June 11, 2007, an undercover policeman arrested Craig in a bathroom at the airport . Craig, who denied soliciting sex in the restroom, said that he had done nothing wrong and that he wasn’t a homosexual.
Craig hired Washington-based Sutherland, Asbill &Brennan and Kelly &Jacobson, a Minnesota firm. He also retained a media relations firm to handle press inquiries about the incident, according to the FCC’s complaint.
The Craig for U.S. Senate Committee paid Sutherland, Asbill at least $139,952 for legal services on Craig’s behalf, while Kelly &Jacobson received about $77,032, the commission said in the filing.
The commission has asked the court to make Craig pay back what he spent on his legal defense and to levy civil penalties against Craig and his campaign treasurer of no more than $6,500.
FEC spokeswoman Julia Queen said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
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