By Kathleen Hunter and Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff

Senate Republicans gave Larry E. Craig a forceful push toward the exits Wednesday as he tried to regain his political and legal footing.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky., told reporters that Craig, R-Idaho, had made the right decision by announcing his intention to resign.

Craig telephoned McConnell on Wednesday to discuss his second thoughts about following through with the resignation. McConnell said Craig wanted to “dispel, as he put it, any confusion.”

“He said that he is going to try to get the case in Minneapolis dismissed,” McConnell said, “that if he is unable to have that disposed of prior to Sept. 30th, it is his intention to resign from the Senate as he expressed last Saturday.

“If he is able to get the case favorably disposed of in Minneapolis, it would be his intention to come back to the Senate, to deal with the Ethics Committee case that he knows that he will have, and to try to finish his term.”

McConnell refused to describe his reply to Craig, but his sentiments were unambiguous. “I thought [Craig] made the correct decision, the difficult but correct decision to resign,” he said. “That would still be my view today.”

Craig pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after an undercover police officer in a bathroom in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport interpreted some hand and foot motions as an invitation for sex.

The incident happened in June, but Craig did not consult a lawyer, tell his family or alert Senate leaders until word leaked out in August. Republican leaders then leaned on Craig to resign.

After Wednesday’s closed-door GOP policy lunch, Gordon H. Smith , R-Ore., said it should be clear that “if you are convicted, the conference will call for your resignation.”

He conceded, though, that “it gets a little gray” when the charge is a misdemeanor.

Robert F. Bennett , R-Utah, a close confidant of McConnell, said, “Once you announce you’re resigning, you don’t take it back.”

In addition to a legal case in Minnesota, Craig faces an investigation by the Ethics Committee. Craig lawyers Stanley M. Brand and Andrew D. Herman sent a letter to the panel Wednesday, asking that the probe sought by Republican leaders be dismissed.

In the letter, they argued that the disorderly conduct conviction does not rise to the level of an ethics investigation and that the activities were not related to official duties.

“It is vital that the Senate Ethics Committee vindicate the interests of both Sen. Craig and the Senate as a whole by expeditiously stating that the committee lacks jurisdiction over any complaint related to this matter,” they wrote.

However, the Senate ethics manual says a senator may be disciplined for activities not related to official duties if the activity “unfavorably reflects on the institution as a whole.”

Brand, an expert on congressional ethics, said in an interview that Craig’s conviction was for a charge less severe than the type of “treason, bribery and fraud” cases the panel was designed to investigate. “They have broad discretion,” he said. “But they’ve never exercised it in this type of case.”

In a letter to McConnell, the acting chairwoman and top Republican on the Ethics Committee said the panel had “reached no conclusions” regarding McConnell’s Aug. 29 request for an ethics investigation of Craig. The letter from Barbara Boxer , D-Calif., and John Cornyn , R-Texas, went on to note that the committee’s past practice has been to close probes once the targets of the investigation have left the Senate.

“Pending Senator Craig’s resignation, the committee will continue to review this matter,” the letter said.

Craig posted a written response on his Senate Web site.

“The letter sent today from the Committee to Senator McConnell does not address the arguments laid out by my attorney earlier today,” he said. “I hope that Committee addresses those arguments sooner, rather than later, so that I can have my name cleared.”

Only Craig’s home-state colleague, fellow Republican Michael D. Crapo , voiced support. “I support whatever Larry does,” he said. “Everybody has a right to try to vindicate themselves.”