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twitterSENATOR’S SCANDAL:
Ensign’s office: Woman’s husband approached media with story
Thursday, June 18, 2009 | 1:50 p.m.
Ensign Admits Affair
U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., acknowledged an extramarital affair with a campaign staff member Tuesday afternoon at the Lloyd George Federal Building in Las Vegas.
Sun Archives
- Unanswered: Why he told (6-18-2009)
- Ensign resigns GOP leadership post (6-17-2009)
- Ensign fallout could weaken GOP efforts to rebuild party at state, national levels (6-17-2009)
- Ensign's mea culpa tops bad day for GOP (6-17-2009)
- Ensign acknowledges extramarital affair (6-16-2009)
Audio Clip
- Sen. John Ensign read a statement about his extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff at a press conference on Tuesday, June 16, 2009.
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Beyond the Sun
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign’s office said today that the reason he went public about an affair with a former staffer that ended more than a year ago is because the woman’s husband, a former top aide to the senator, had approached the media with the story.
Earlier reports have said that senator came forward because the couple, Cynthia Hampton, and her husband, Doug, had tried to extort the senator for hush money.
But the Las Vegas Sun reported today that neither the FBI nor Metro Police in Las Vegas are investigating any such claim.
Ensign’s office declined to say today whether the Hamptons sought funds to keep quiet. But the office confirmed reports that the senator disclosed the affair Tuesday because it might be outed.
“Mr. Hampton first approached the media,” Ensign’s spokesman said by e-mail. “He approached a major television news channel before Tuesday. We learned of this fact before the press conference.”
Ensign held a press conference on Tuesday in Las Vegas to publicly acknowledge the affair.
The Sun was trying to reach the Hamptons’ attorney today for comment.
The couple’s Las Vegas attorney, Daniel Albregts, told the Sun Wednesday that "in time the Hamptons will be ready and willing to tell their side of the story.” He said the couple did "everything possible to keep this matter private."
Ensign’s sudden acknowledgement of the affair with Cynthia Hampton, which occurred while she, her husband and their adult son were all on the senator’s payroll, continues to create fallout in both Washington and Nevada.
The Ensign-backed Republican Renewal Project -- a political action committee in Nevada launched on Ensign’s vision to rejuvenate the state’s Republican Party after Democratic gains -- had been scheduled to host a fundraising BBQ Friday.
Ensign was to be the featured guest at the dinner, but it has been postponed, according to the Web site.
Ensign remains away from Washington, missing several votes, and is not expected to return until next week.
The Senate is scheduled to resume debate next week on a tourism bill important to Nevada that Ensign co-sponsored with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The Sun reported today that records show payroll payments to the Hampton family during the eight-month affair, which began in late 2007 and ended in August 2008.
Cynthia Hampton’s salary doubled as she took over as treasurer for Ensign’s leadership campaign account until she left in May 2008. Doug Hampton’s final month’s salary as a top aide at the senator’s office was nearly $20,000 -- more than his normal pay at the $160,000-a-year-job, although the extra sum could have been for accrued sick or vacation time, or as a stipend.
The couple have not worked for Ensign since May 2008.
The couple’s son, Brandon, was also on the payroll with a $1,000-a-month summer job at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008, which Ensign chaired at the time.
The New York Times reported today that after Ensign reconciled with his wife and dismissed Cynthia Hampton, he paid her a severance out of his own pocket.
Ensign’s office has declined to comment on the Hamptons’ salaries, or any severance.
Doug Hampton took a job with Allegiant Air, a Las Vegas company whose CEO is a major Ensign supporter.
A news Web site reported today that Brandon Hampton is also now employed by a Allegiant Air.
“Brandon Hampton, the 19-year-old son of Doug and Cynthia Hampton, works as a representative in the call center,” the news website TPMmuckraker reported.
“And Doug Hampton became a vice president of government affairs for Allegiant in August 2008, according to the spokeswoman, Tyri Squyres.”
Squyres told the Web site that Doug Hampton “was hired based on his experience and credentials."
Discussion: 26 comments so far…
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All right - if there was an extortion attempt, why didn't Ensign report it?
If he was going to come clean anyway, reporting it is still the right thing to do even if the extortion never actually came to fruition.
Smacks of a spin-machine attempting to label Ensign as a victim. Yes, you were punked, now deal with your actions. You're lucky the husband didn't do more than rat you out to the media.
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's (friend's or employee's) wife"
"Thou shalt not commit adultery"
A Promise Keeper, too?
PROMISE 3
A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.
PROMISE 4
A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.
What is this? The article says the affair ended more than a year and half ago. Aug 2008 is only 10 months. Obviously Sen Ensign can't add or subtract either. And how convenient that he pays her out of his own pocket. Didn't the governor of New York pay his girl out of his own pocket too?
Yeah, I really believe anything that's coming out of Ensign's camp. Extortion threats and he didn't report it? Not credible.
John Ensign should sponsor a job fair for those of us who aren't connected. For what he paid out to his best friend, his mistress, and their son, he could sponsor quite a few of us unemployed, honest folks who are going under. I can type 65 w.p.m.; but I won't do the nasty. Should I send in my resume anyway??
Senator Ensign is a veterinarian by training. How can his extra-marital fence-jumping habit be broken?
"Neuter and Spay, it's the Only Way."
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009...
if these politicians [ both sides] aren't in the pockets of big business, they're in someones pants that they shouldn't be in.
And their son who worked for Ensign now works in a call center. One step above hiring an illegal for the job. "Hello, my name is Jose Canyousee. How may I help you?" This situation really stinks, and makes Monica seem like a breath of fresh air. Well, maybe not fresh air....
He paid her severance from his own pocket? This guy is a brothel worker's dream. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
A politician who broke his promise. No surprise here. Time to get off your high horse and acknowledge the great unwashed.
Ensign is playing this scenario straight out of Slick Bill's political playbook. Three years from now, the Hampton's will be working menial jobs and Ensign will be back in office for six more years. Bank on it!
afveteran...in a pig's eye.
Ensign AND his staff have ZERO credibility left - especally when the reader doesn't even get the name and title of whoever is anonymously sending information out of Ensign's office!
Let's tighten the screws down and insist that this gets investigated ON THE RECORD and every source is clearly identified by name and title (and whatever explanation is necessary to describe their history/relationship with Ensign) - so, the public can follow the facts PLEASE!
I'd love to see a step-by-step chronology of all the money involved between Ensign, his mistress, his mistresses husband, and their youngster - and anyone else Ensign was "intimate" "friends" with?
I'd also like to see some research done into why sexual harrassement, bribery or extortion charges were not initiated?
And what about these rumours I'm hearing about Ensign being a secret bi-sexual? Was this a 3 way affair?
The financial improprieties in Ensign's office started prior to this affair he owns up to. His excuse for installing Mrs. Hampton as treasurer of his campaign and his PAC was that the previous treasurer had to be let go for irregularities -- that were never explained. Now this treasurer and her husband leave their jobs and there is no accounting of the money that was paid to them. Ensign's office needs an audit. Yesterday!
John Ensign is a total piece of garbage & deserves no respect from anyone.
EN-SIGN SHOULD RE-SIGN.
To All on this Board: You are neither credible nor humorous...get a life...turn off your new computer and go back to watching NASCAR...geez...what drivel and gossipmongering by a bunch of uninformed, uneducated maroons...
to elgato:
It's not "gossipmongering" when the statements by Ensign's own staff don't match establish facts. It's called "poking holes in the story".
And I'll put my credibility up against yours any day of the week. At least I'm willing to do research and read ALL the information available. You prefer to sit in the peanut gallery and heckle. Which is fine, but don't expect the rest of us to listen.
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...Last May a car was missing from the Ensign headquarters garage with a "Family on Board" sign in the rear window...
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Even my Republican friends want Ensign to resign, he is a disgrace, his hypocracy is stunning!
Ensign must go. He lied about being extorted by the Hamptons --
I urge my fellow Nevadans to join me in recalling him if he refuses (like Vitter) to do the honorable thing (quit, like Spitzer).
I heard same-sex couples were the ones ruining the sanctity of marriage, but Mr. family values Christian is doing a pretty good job of mucking it up himself.
He'll never tell the truth, we already know how honest this guy is.
We do know that the sinator lied to his wife, his friend, his family, his state, his constituents, his country, his colleagues in D.C. and who ever else he had sex with. Nobody that cheats on his wife does it only once, he only gets caught once. Or twice, or... This dog has a bone and he'll bury it anywhere as often as he can.
Think about all the American young people he helped send to jail by keeping marijuana laws in force through government lies and deceit. Think of those 10% of Americans from whom he has taken away God given inalienable rights specified and granted by the US Constitution with his insane sense of morality and inequality. Is your son or daughter one of those 10%? Consider those people facing bankruptcy due to high medical bills because he gets paid by insurance companies lobbyists to keep the "for profit" health care system in place. Not to mention the Bankruptcy law he voted for in the senate that took away bankruptcy and left in it's place a system of bill collection companies called lawyers. Or how about the poor kids with Juvenile Diabetes who face four or five injections daily starting as babies extending throughout their lives because of his anti stem cell research voting history. This guy has more than an adulterous history. He assisted in the crumbling of our economy by voting for deregulation of the financial system, high unemployment and foreclosures.
He needlessly forced many people to continue suffering and to die suffering due to his lies about medical marijuana. He knows he lied because he knows the US Government has patent #6630507 on one Marijuana constituent THC as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, MS, RSD and HIV dementia. Also useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases like Arthritis, RA and IBS.
He is just a creep. But, I suspect all you moral republicants in Nevada will vote him in again. You give him excuses and allow him to blame the woman he sexually abused with his power, some call it just an affair, but subordinates (employees), especially women, can't say no to their boss when they have kids to raise. I call it quiet rape by employer power.
He fits the discription of the Anti-Christ doesn't he. Professing his association with God, and all the while being and doing anti-Christian things. Boy those Family Value, Bible thumping, my morality is better than your's republic-rats are all the same. They use your Faith just to get the power you give them with your lemming-like faith-based vote. VOTE FOR ME LEMMING!
Here is the link to read the entire patent if you desire to read it. It IS true. No medical value indeed.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parse...
CUT AND PASTE IT INTO YOUR BROWSER
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...Very interesting information Whitey, Here's my question If the Hamptons son is working at a call center, are there any special off hour prices for a nice Christian (tee hee) call girl.
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Ensign has admitted to an affair - but, this is not your garden-variety, typical affair people!
Ensign admitted to SEXUAL HARRASSMENT - that is a crime! Ensign also admitted that his SEXUAL HARRASSMENT went on for several months, so that raises the big question:
"Is U. S. Senator, JOHN ENSIGN, (REPUBLICAN-NV) also GUILTY of STALKING and being a SEXUAL PREDATOR?"