Sex Sting Nets U.S. Senator; Wildfires Rage in Idaho
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A misdemeanor arrest, a guilty plea, a fine and probation, case closed? Politically, a much tougher judgment could await the senator caught in the sex sting who swears he did nothing wrong. Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN Center in Atlanta. Don Lemon is off. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Well, he has a conservative record. Now he has a criminal one. Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig denies lewd behavior in an airport bathroom in June. But Craig did plead guilty to a misdemeanor, a plea that could come back to haunt him. CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin has the latest.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A government watchdog group has now filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Larry Craig. They are asking them to look into whether the senator may have broken Senate rules by pleading guilty to this disorderly conduct charge. In a plea agreement obtained by CNN, Larry Craig says, "I am pleading guilty because I engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment of others which was physical in nature." Now, it all stems from an incident that took place in June of this year at a Minneapolis airport. A law enforcement officer was investigating possible sexual activity in a men's room there and according to the police report, he was in a bathroom stall next to Senator Larry Craig. He claims that the senator tapped his foot several times and ran his hand under the bottom of a bathroom stall. And the officer says this is a clear sign that someone's interested in engaging in lewd activity. According to that arrest report, the officer then indicated that the senator was under arrest. When he was taken into a separate room, the report shows that the senator took out a business card, showing he was a U.S. senator. And he said, what do you think of that? It was two months later that Senator Craig pled guilty to this disorderly conduct charge. He paid more than $500 in fines and had a 10-day sentence. That has been stayed. In a statement released from Craig's office, he says: "At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty." We understand that Senator Craig is currently on vacation with his family, his wife and three children.</s>PHILLIPS: Now some background on Larry Craig. Idaho's senior senator is married with three grown children. He has a conservative voting record, including support for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Last fall, Craig's office denied an Internet blogger's claim that the senator is gay, dismissing the speculation as completely ridiculous. In 1982, Craig denied he was under scrutiny in a federal investigation. It focused on allegations that lawmakers had sexual relationships with Capitol Hill pages. Craig was never implicated. Well, if you would like to read the full arrest report, you can just go to CNN.com. You can see all the details of the arrest and the complaint as they were filed. You can see it now at CNN.com. Busted in the bathroom? Maybe it caught an Idaho senator by surprise, but public restrooms are a popular venue for making gay sex arrests. We are going to talk about it with an Atlanta cop who conducts those stings later in the NEWSROOM. So how is Alberto Gonzales spending his last weeks as attorney general? A day after he dropped his resignation bombshell, Gonzales is in New Orleans where he gave a short speech at the city's new Family Justice Center. Gonzales didn't shed light on his resignation, but he did say that New Orleans was a highlight of his tenure at Justice.</s>ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I am extremely proud, particularly on the day after I have announced that I am going to be stepping down, to be here in this city, because I think one of the best stories for the Department of Justice is the effort that we have seen here in this community, working with state and local officials.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, the center will help domestic violence and sex assault victims. Gonzales' last day as attorney general is September 17. Solicitor General Paul Clement will fill Gonzales' shoes until the president picks a successor. Mr. Bush hasn't named names, not publicly anyway, but there's plenty of speculation. These are some of the names being bandied about: Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, now working for Pepsico, Ted Olson -- he's the former solicitor general -- and George Terwilliger, a deputy attorney general under the first President Bush. Well, forget about driving to work. The owner of this car woke up to find a couple of holes through it. That's just part of the damage from the latest storms to hit Minnesota, with high winds, heavy rain, hail-size golf balls. Tens of thousands of people don't have electricity. And more storms are in the forecast. From the air and on the ground, more than 1,400 firefighters are battling wildfires in Idaho, each one burning ever closer to popular tourist spots. CNN's Rob Marciano is on the fire lines in the town of Ketchum.</s>ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: There's the lodge that on Sunday came extremely close to burning to the ground. The flames came within 100 feet of it, but firefighters managed to battle back those flames. The path of the fire, you can see the charred landscape on that saddle there. Now the active fire, just down this ridge, look at that smoke billowing up. Flames tossing 15, 20 feet in the air. You can feel the wind. And that's what firefighters are worried about. If this wind shifts -- and they think it might do that -- and it gets over this ridge, then we have got a whole 'nother round of problems, including not only ski resort structures but the town of Ketchum at risk. Something else we saw up on the mountain, snow guns, typically used to make snow during the wintertime, here at Sun Valley, threatened by this wildfire, they are using those snow guns to wet down the terrain and wet down structures. So far, so good on that front. But, still, over 40,000 acres have burned with this fire. Here back at base camp now that the sun is coming up, the day shift is getting their assignment, getting geared up for another day on the fire line. Rob Marciano, CNN, Ketchum, Idaho.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, an immigration probe leads to a huge bust at an Ohio poultry plant. Agents raided the Koch Foods processing plant in Fairfield, right near Cincinnati. More than 100 workers were arrested. That raid is part of a two-year investigation into hiring at Chicago-based Koch Foods. Now, according to its Web site, the company supplies fresh and frozen chicken to a global market. Drag-racing, drifting, and dying. Car crashes are the number one cause of death for American teens. We are going to take a look at some of the dangerous and deadly driving -- straight ahead from the CNN NEWSROOM. And take a little piece of Italy, run it past Las Vegas, drop into Macau. Next in the NEWSROOM, placing a $2.5 billion bet.