Craig is fighting ethics complaint lodged by GOP leaders

This is really getting good -- and it's so not over. Larry Craig is fighting back against the GOP colleagues who threw him under the bus last week:

The lawyers, Stanley M. Brand and Andrew D. Herman of The Brand Group, wrote that there is no precedent for a Senate ethics review of “purely personal conduct unrelated to the performance of official Senate duties.”

Investigating such a complaint, they warned, would draw the Senate into “reviewing and adjudging a host of minor misdemeanors and transgressions” even if “minor or professionally irrelevant.” Mr. Craig has also hired lawyers to review the Minneapolis airport case, saying that he made a mistake pleading guilty and that he is, in fact, innocent.

Five Republican leaders issued a statement shortly after they heard about Mr. Craig’s arrest and guilty plea saying they would recommend that the incident be reported to the ethics committee. The action was widely seen as ramping up pressure on Mr. Craig to resign and avoid further embarrassment. Mr. Brand, a former general counsel to the House of Representatives, said he has not seen the written complaint but assumes it was filed. “I don’t expect them to withdraw it,” Mr. Brand said in a telephone interview this morning. “I expect the committee, which is an evenly split committee, to look at the precedents and to dismiss the complaint.”

Mitch McConnell and his GOP leadership colleagues were acting pretty smug about how quickly they dispatched with Craig last week. They were celebrating their accomplishment too soon.