Congressional Sex Scandals

David Phillips

Three months after Larry Craig vehemently denied he was gay and vowed to finish out his term, four men came forward to the Idaho Statesman with on-the-record accounts of their sexual activity with the Senator, continuing its coverage of the Craig scandal which would be nominated for a Pulitzer in the breaking news category.

The men came forward, according to the Statesman, because they were angered by Craig's hypocrisy. His comments that, "I am not gay. I have never been gay," spoken at the late August press conference, had by then been used as the basis for a satirically-marketed Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.

One man, David Phillips, an information technology consultant from Washington, D.C., told the newspaper Craig had picked him up in the gay strip club The Follies in 1986. Craig led Phillips to a nearby apartment where Craig performed oral sex on him, Phillips said. Phillips then reciprocated, he said, after which the two then had anal sex, Phillips told the newspaper.

Mike Jones

"After the sex, he just wanted me out of there," Phillips said. He told the Statesman Craig stuck $20 in his pocket and said, "I can buy and sell your ass a thousand times over. You were never here."

Another alleged partner of Craig's was Mike Jones, a male escort famous for his role in outing the Rev. Ted Haggard in 2006. Craig arranged for a massage with Jones in Denver sometime between November 2004 and March 2005. Craig paid Jones $200 for the massage, during which he masturbated while performing oral sex on Jones, the male escort told the newspaper.

Craig did not respond to requests for comment for the Statesman article, but his staff told a TV station that Jones was lying to sell a book he had just published.

As of early October 2008, Craig was still fighting to have his guilty plea overturned.