Haggard rent boy claims Senator was client

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • October 8, 2007 - 15:26

The long-serving Senator from Idaho has been at the centre of a scandal surrounding his behaviour in a public toilet.

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The male prostitute who brought the career of homophobic preacher Ted Haggard to an end by revealing they had a sexual relationship has now made sensational claims about a US Senator embroiled in a cruising scandal.

Haggard resigned last year as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after Mike Jones alleged the preacher paid him over a three-year period for sex and sometimes took crystal meth (methamphetamine) during the encounters.

Haggard was fired as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church. He publicly admitted in November to unspecified "sexual immorality."

Now Mike Jones has hinted that embattled US Senator Larry Craig was a client - but refused to give any proof.

In a radio interview with KNWQ-AM in Palm Springs last week he said that the Senator had come to see him in Denver.

Presenter "Bulldog" Bill Feingold asked if Senator Craig had seen Jones in a hotel room.

"No, he came to see me. His travel records to Denver have been documented. That's what I wanted to say."

A spokesman for Craig said that the allegations were completely false.

The long-serving Senator from Idaho has been at the centre of a scandal surrounding his behaviour in a public toilet.

He was arrested on June 11th by an undercover police officer in a Minneapolis airport toilet who said the lawmaker had engaged in conduct "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct."

Minutes after his arrest for lewd conduct, Craig, 62, denied soliciting for sex, saying "I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," according to an audio tape released by police.

He denied that he had used foot and hand gestures to signal interest in a sexual encounter.

Despite a pledge to resign, he later announced he would challenge his guilty plea and claimed that he admitted to the charge in a panic to avoid triggering a story about his sexuality in his hometown newspaper.

Senator Craig's challenge was dismissed, but he has remained in office and says he is to serve out his full term and try to clear his name.

A senior Republican and candidate for the party's Presidential nomination has speculated that Senator Craig will be censured by the Senate for his behaviour but not expelled.

"It's a misdemeanour crime," Kansas Senator Sam Brownback said in interview with Bloomberg Television.

"If you look at that in the history of things, it's unlikely that would lead to expulsion."

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