Husband of Ensign's Mistress Hid $96,000 of Hush Money

A top aide to Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) did not disclose in his Senate financial disclosure statements more than $96,000 in payments that Ensign’s wealthy parents made to the aide and his wife to conceal an extramarital affair that Ensign had with the aide’s wife.

The $96,000 in payments was made by Ensign’s parents to a former top aide to Ensign, Doug Hampton. At the time, Ensign had recently ended a long term extramarital affair with Hampton’s wife, Cynthia Hampton.

Ensign and his family have described the payments as “gifts” to be paid to the Hamptons.

In financial disclosure statements Doug Hampton filed with the Senate, Doug Hampton was asked: “Did you, your spouse, or dependent child receive any reportable gift in the reporting period (I.e. aggregating more than $335 and not otherwise exempt)?”

Despite the $96,000 in payments made to him and his family, Doug Hampton checked “no” in a box next to the question about whether he had received such gifts, according to a report in the Las Vegas Sun.

An attorney for Ensign has claimed that the payments to the Hamptons were “made as gifts, accepted as gifts.”

If that is correct, Doug Hampton could face inquiries by Congress and tax authorities as to whether he lied on his Senate forms.

Doug Hampton claims, however, that the payments were not gifts at all, but were instead severance pay for work the Hamptons had done for Ensign.

If that was the case, reports the Sun, “The details are critical because if the payment was a severance, as Doug Hampton claims, Ensign could face felony criminal charges for failing to report the transfer on campaign disclosure forms as would be required.”

Meanwhile, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, or CREW, a non-profit ethics watchdog group, has written to Attorney General Eric Holder asking that the Justice Department investigate the payments by Ensign’s family to the Hamptons.

And in an interesting new twist to the whole affair, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who allegedly counseled Ensign to apologize to the Hamptons and pay them money, has said that he would not talk to congressional and federal investigators about what advice he gave Ensign.

Coburn, a deacon in his church, claimed that he was engaged in religious and spiritual counseling for Ensign, and thus would invoke a privilege that he was serving as Ensign’s clergyman.

Coburn told Roll Call: “I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon. That is a privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the (Senate) Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody.”