BOISE, Idaho Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig will resign from the Senate amid a furor over his arrest and guilty plea in a police sex sting in an airport men’s room, Republican officials said Friday.
Craig will announce at a news conference in Boise this morning that he will resign effective Sept. 30, GOP officials in Idaho and Washington said.
Word of the resignation came four days after the disclosure that Craig had pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge arising out of his June 11 arrest during a lewd-conduct investigation at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The three-term Republican senator had maintained that he did nothing wrong except for making the guilty plea without consulting a lawyer. But he found almost no support among Republicans in his home state or Washington, D.C.
Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter appeared Friday to have already settled on a successor: Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, according to several Republicans familiar with internal deliberations.
Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, had said earlier that the senator would announce his career plans today.
Craig has been out of public view since Tuesday, when he declared defiantly at a Boise news conference: “I am not gay. I never have been gay.” But Republican sources in Idaho said he spent Friday making calls to top party officials, including the governor, gauging their support.
There has been virtually none publicly.
Asked Friday at the White House if the senator should resign, President Bush said nothing and walked off stage.
On Thursday, the Minneapolis airport authorities released a tape recording of Craig’s interrogation minutes after he encountered a plainclothes officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, in an adjacent stall in an airport restroom.
“I’m not gay. I don’t do these kinds of things,” Craig told the officer. “You shouldn’t be out to entrap people.”
Karsnia accused Craig of lying and grew exasperated with his denials.
“Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we’re going down the tubes,” Karsnia said.
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