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Ethics group amends Ensign complaint over $96,000 payment
AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is seen talking with reporters on his way to a vote on Monday, June 22, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Published Friday, July 17, 2009 | 10:24 a.m.
Updated Saturday, July 18, 2009 | 2:02 a.m.
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Sun Archives
- Ethics group amends Ensign complaint over $96,000 payment (7-17-2009)
- Ensign’s $96,000 question: Severance pay or gift to Hamptons? (7-16-2009)
- In D.C., some worry Ensign saga is not over (7-15-2009)
- Ensign gives first Senate speech since acknowledging affair (7-15-2009)
- Ensign to stay in Senate, seek reelection (7-14-2009)
- Silence, not calls for Ensign to quit (7-12-2009)
- If shockers done, Ensign could stay in office, many say (7-11-2009)
- GOP support for Ensign dwindles as new details of affair emerge (7-10-2009)
- Ensign's parents gave Hampton family $96,000 (7-9-2009)
- Hampton portrays Ensign as relentless (7-9-2009)
- Ensign’s pal lacked usual qualifications for top job (7-5-2009)
- Handling the public display of contrition (6-27-2009)
- Off the cuff, Ensign guarded but genial (6-26-2009)
- Fox News had Hampton’s letter earlier than it said (6-24-2009)
- For Ensign, a new lot in Congress (6-24-2009)
- Ensign apologizes during lunch with GOP senators (6-23-2009)
- Back in Washington, Ensign received warmly (6-23-2009)
- Ensign back in D.C.; group plans ethics complaint (6-22-2009)
- In state GOP, Ensign finds few defenders (6-21-09)
Republican Sen. John Ensign’s parents were added Friday to a complaint before the Federal Election Commission suggesting they violated campaign finance law by paying $96,000 to the family of the woman with whom he was having an affair.
The latest filing by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington comes as the senator’s office continues to insist the payments to the family of Cynthia Hampton were gifts, not severance to the former campaign aide, as the woman’s husband claims.
The distinction is important. In a televised interview last week the husband, Doug Hampton, who also worked for the senator as a top aide, said his wife was paid severance in excess of $25,000.
If the payments were severance, the senator may have committed a felony violation of campaign finance law by failing to disclose them as required.
The problem intensified this week when news outlets, including MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” picked up on a statement from the Ensign camp to The Washington Post.
Ensign’s office had been calling various outlets to clarify that the two payments were the same — the $96,000 payment from the parents included the one in excess of $25,000 that Doug Hampton had referred to during his TV interview with Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston.
From the effort to clear up news reports that added the two payments together, further confusion emerged.
The Washington Post issued a correction that said the senator’s office “says that the alleged $25,000-plus severance payment to the Hamptons that some critics had questioned is part of the generous $96,000 gift Ensign’s parents decided to give the Hamptons.”
Maddow and others latched onto the word “severance” in that sentence as an admission by Ensign that the payment was in fact severance.
When contacted Friday, Ensign’s office said the wording by the news organization was incorrect, and the intent of the statement was to explain that the total gift was $96,000.
Ensign’s office repeated the statement by the senator’s attorney that the $96,000 was “made as gifts, accepted as gifts.”
The senator’s attorney has said the $96,000 payment was a single check but was to be considered as eight separate $12,000 payments from each parent to Cynthia Hampton, Doug Hampton and two of their three children.
Limiting each payment to $12,000 shields the Ensign parents from taxes, as that was the ceiling to avoid gift taxes in the 2008 tax year.
The Hamptons have not disputed that the $96,000 includes the $25,000 payment. Doug Hampton’s attorney declined to comment.
The severance versus gift debate underlies the watchdog group’s complaint to the Federal Election Commission. If the payment was severance, it would need to be reported as an in-kind contribution to the committees where Cynthia Hampton worked. No such disclosure was made.
Knowingly failing to report a payment of $25,000 or more could be a felony. The watchdog organization, known as CREW, has also sought investigations by the Senate Ethics Committee and Justice Department.
Tax experts have told the Sun that calling the payment a gift would not necessarily make it so, and that the parties would need to provide contemporaneous evidence to prove the case — perhaps a written or oral agreement, or third party witness.
Also, for the Hamptons to avoid paying income taxes on the gift, they would have to show that it was given with “detached and disinterested generosity.”
CREW on Friday amended its request for a Federal Election Commission investigation to include the senator’s parents, Michael and Sharon Ensign. The couple may have violated campaign finance law by giving beyond the legal limit for contributions, the letter said.
CREW said the maximum the parents would have been able to contribute to the senator’s personal campaign committee, Ensign for Senate, is $9,600 this election cycle — $2,400 from each of them for both the primary and general elections.
Additionally, the maximum the parents could have contributed to the senator’s leadership Political Action Committee, the Battle Born PAC, is $10,000 for the year — that is, $5,000 each.
“Accordingly, there is no way Michael and Sharon Ensign could have both made $12,000 severance payments to Cynthia Hampton without violating the dollar limits,” according to the CREW filing.
CREW said the maximum civil penalty would be a $10,000 fine or double the amount above the allowed contribution.
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Why dance around this issue? This was a conspiracy to commit bribery, pure and simple. Maybe it was a response to extortion, maybe not, but it was obviously an attempt to buy silence.
I believe that it has already been established that Mr. Hampton also accepted AND claimed it was a gift. Are we on some kind of witch hunt? I smell a frivolous lawsuit here. Besides bitter Liberals and Liberal groups this dog don't bark!
Perhaps the parents would have done better to teach their son the difference between right and wrong, instead of buying his way out of this shameful affair.
If Mr. Ensign had any sense of decency he would resign and face the consequences like a man.
Instead he hides behind his mother`s skirt.
@DessertSun -
Participants in a criminal conspiracy can be counted on to say whatever is expedient, with the expediencies changing over time. I don't want a "witch hunt" (not a "Liberal" btw), I want a criminal investigation of what clearly looks like bribery in pursuit of silence.
d'sun; if we were dealing w/ people that told the truth this story would have died weeks ago; as it is, more news to come.
Let's face it: Gibbons never had to pay for sex! Garages and parking lots only. Ensign needs to resign and let Gibbons replace him (a la Dick Bryan back in the 80's).
Mark Twain
From his essay:
"On the Decay of the Art of Lying"
.
Among other common lies, we have the silent lie -- the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.
Crown John Ensign the king of concealing the truth. But remember the iceberg - we only "see" John Ensign. Close your eyes and try to imagine all those who we can't see at this time. ... try to imagine all those who "should be in the mob museum"!!!!!
Ensign's handlers have a lot more where the $96K came from!!!!!!
John Ensign should resign at the end of the current session, for Nevada, for Congress, for his party of choice, and most of all for his family and friends. Pay to play, extending to his parents, has no place in the halls of Congress, or in the role of a Nevada Senator.
Lisa, could you please do all of us a favor. Could you investigate and find out how many ethics complaints by this group are sustained, and what the consequences are.
I'm a loyal Democrat, but this group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington come off like sanctimonious pains in the arse.
Lisa, you know from your reporting experience in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita that there are a lot of "irate" activists who make a lot of noise, filing complaints here, there and everywhere, but few if any of them blossom into regulatory sanctions.
So please, Lisa, tell us the batting average of this group!
I've been keeping up with this and some of the editorials like one a couple weeks ago when there was a chronological thing on this from the beginning to when the "cat was let out of the bag" and one this week by George Knapp in Citylife magazine, WOW,... this story in the unfolding would make some of episodes on the TV show "Dallas" and J.R. Ewing look like kid stuff...really, it must take some balls for J. Ensign to think he should hang on to his political intentions, especially w/what has happened to some of these other high profile figures in State and Federal government around the Country over the past couple years, amazing.....
Does anyone know exactly who Senator Ensign is working hard for? Has he or his office helped you? Someone must have a story of how the Senator Helped them with a problem. I still await for the Senator and his crack staff with help they pledged . . . that I have never received?
Whom does Senator Ensign Represent and help?
All the free press Ensign is getting is amazing.
FREE PRESS is might be GOTJOBS....but it brings things to the surface that otherwise would be buried and forgotten.Hopefully, it gets people to actually think about the things when it comes time to pull that lever in the next election.
John Ensign must go around thinking that all people are idiots. This guy's a total piece of garbage. $96,000 is not a gift. It's whats called-HUSH MONEY.
@gold1020 -
That's what I say. The less impolitic and more focused word being "bribery."
"CREW in its initial filing has said that if the payment was a severance, "
Yes, if the moon is made out cheese.
Cindy Hampton was not an employee of Ensign's parents.
It would have been impossible for it to be a severance payment.
CREW admits on its own website that is a liberal pro-Democratic organization.
Why stop there with the "if's"?
They should say, "What if Ensign's 3rd removed cousin gave Micheal Jackson drugs?" or "What if Ensign's pet dog ate the neighbor's newspaper?" or "What if Ensign's great great great grandfather caused the War of 1812 to start?"
They should just go wild with the "what if's".
The Sun is a rag hack "Nevada Democratic talking points" newspaper (not really a newspaper...just an insert in a real newspaper).
Bribery.
How much money went to the cult house Ensign bunked in?
mred: It's not a cult house. It's nothing but a frat house for bad Republican boys. Just think of that clean cut fraternity in the movie "Animal House"...well groomed scoundrels all of them.
Cheating, coverup and hush money and he still thinks he is a qualified U. S. Senator. Amazing, truly amazing when considered that he is also a professed Christian.
Instead of one check in one lump sum, wouldn't have individual checks been a better cover? It seems to me the Ensigns,et.al, made this explanation of payments to each family member after the fact to hide their criminal activity. Nevada doesn't need a man like John representing our state. All he did was tell Nevadas' citizens of his affair. We found out from other sources of his other activities. What else are you hiding Johnny boy?
when is this gong to be investigated as an extortion?
Sgt. Rock ~~ The Las Vegas Sun at least wins nationally recognized awards, unlike the R-J. What have you won lately?
"Cheating, coverup and hush money and he still thinks he is a qualified U. S. Senator"
Yes lying and committing prejury in a US court of law makes one qualified to be US President.
Yes, getting one of the biggest crooks in Chicago to help buy you a home makes one qualified to be US President.
$50,000. dollar fine; don't do that again, case closed.
Next!
Dessert Sun Bitter liberals have nothing to do with this lying scumbag hypocrite Ensign. This dog does bark and bark loudly. It is the in denial conservatives who are bitter, bitter their holier than thou elected officials keep getting caught at things they tell the rest of us the destain. This is why only one in five now consider thewselves Republicans, the stench of lying and hypocricy is to much for even the dredges of society to accept. DOG DON'T BARK! Are you insane?
SgtRock Such desperation and yet you fail to make sense. Your daily rants are now bordering on insanity. If a crooked donor in Chcago is the best you have then you should go for a walk. There is more corruption involed in 'W's' library donations.
SgtRoch Or better yet the corruption involed in getting Bush's thieving brother Neil off in the Denver savings and loan scandal which he should have went directly to prison for. And you are hanging your hat on a slum lord in Chicago? Get a life
I simply want a criminal investigation into what clearly looks like a conspiracy to commit bribery, possibly precipitated by attempted extortion. All the other stuff is irrelevant sideshow noise.
If my mom and dad gave some extorting a-hole their money to get lost, what would that have to do with me. My parents are grown-ups who can do whatever they want with their cash. This is a real non-story promulgated by the liberal news media.
Someone in this string referred to Ensign as a Christian but in his C Street cult, God came to his leader Coe and advised him that the Rich and powerful did not have to follow any of the moral tenets we other Christians followed. Because they are rich and powerful, they had to use this to conquer the world!
I'm not making this up to be funny..this is all available on line and none of them have denied it! This is some scary fecal matter!!
According to the latest poll done in Nevada a few weeks ago, Ensign still had a higher approval rating than Reid.
"There is more corruption involed in 'W's' library donations."
Yes, Obama who lived in Chicago for decades has never stated to see one single crook even though his political mentor and guy who help him buy a house is one of the biggest crooks in Chicago.
The same Obama who appointed one of the biggest pieces of slim to be his chief of staff.
You must be really proud of Obama.
I absolutely agree with the post that the $96K was obviously an attempt to buy silence. Ensign must think that we are all idiots to buy into this story that they concocted.
Miss Summerlin...you might have a good point.
I guess that you are saying that Hamptons agreed to be silent in exchange for getting the $96k from Ensign's parents.
I am not sure on how that would be illegal from Ensign's parents point of view.
There is nothing illegal about giving cash away.
I can see on how that might be illegal from the Hampton's point of view.
I believe it is called exhortion and the Ensign's parents would be the victims and the Hamptions would the criminals.
If the Hamptons say it is payment for their silence then they would be admiting to exhortion. If they do not pay FICA, Medicare and Federal income taxes on it then they would be commiting tax fraud.
If it is a gift that is not for payment of goods, services or silence then they have no legal issuses.