Archive for category: emptywheel

The Politico reports that Senator Ensign may have a campaign finance problem–because he did not report the "severance payment" he is said to have given his mistress, Cindy Hampton, when he fired her last year (h/t CREW).

There continue to be a number of outstanding questions on the scandal, including whether Ensign gave a "severance package" to Cindy Hampton, his former campaign treasurer. The affair between Ensign and Cindy Hampton lasted from December 2007 to August 2008, Ensign said. She and her husband both left Ensign’s payroll at the end of April 2008.

POLITICO and The New York Times both reported that Cindy Hampton received a severance package from the senator, but Ensign’s camp has declined to confirm whether any such payments actually took place.

If Ensign, or any other entity, did provide Cindy Hampton with a severance payment, those payments were not recorded on Ensign’s disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

"If the payment was compensation for her work for the PAC, it has to be reported," said Brett Kappel, a campaign finance expert with the firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease. "It doesn’t matter when the payment was made."

But, as Citizen92 pointed out, Cindy Hampton was the one in charge of reporting that payoff. And when they got rid of her, they brought in the same woman, Lisa Lisker, brought in to clean up after the NRCC embezzlement scandal. (See also this comment from Citizen92 where he was connecting some of these dots back in February 2008.)

Anyway, that confrontation in front of Coburn, the NRCC embezzlement scandal and Ward’s retirement may be coincedental timing – or there may be more to it.

Ward was the treasurer of Ensign’s Battle Born PAC. Ward was replaced by Hampton.

Ward was the treasurer of the (Republican) Senate Majority Committee, headed by Ensign. Ward was replaced by Hampton.

And, of course, Ward was the treasuer of the NRCC (his primary embezzlement dipping well). Ward was briefly replaced by the incumbent assistant treasurer, but in June 2008 was replaced by Lisa Lisker, a partner in the DC based powerhouse firm Huckaby Davis Lisker.

What’s interesting is that after the Hamptons left DC “for medical reasons”, Ensign’s Battle Born PAC made Lisa Lisker treasurer.

Any chance that Ensign (or the Hamptons) were personally plugged into the embezzlement scandal? There sure are a lot of common players here.

Read more →

As I linked to unwittingly in a past post, journalists are particularly interested in Tom Coburn’s take on John Ensign’s affair because they live together. 

Reporters mobbed Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who shares an apartment with Ensign on Capitol Hill. "I’m not answering any Ensign questions," he announced. "You can ask all you want."

That home, of course, is where Doug Hampton claims a confrontation about Ensign’s affair occurred in February 2008.

Citizen92 asked a very good question in a past thread–where John Ensign and Tom Coburn share a place together.

I searched and the Hamptons didn’t own property in DC (city). Neither do the Ensigns. Neither do the Coburns. At least under their own names. Any ideas who owns the Coburn-Ensign pad? Or are they renters?

To which I asked whether or not Ensign and Coburn are members of The Family.

The Family, as Jeff Sharlet has reported, is a secretive fellowship that aims to mobilize pseudo-Christian issues to accrue power–what he described "a good old boy’s club blessed by God."

They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing" — a government led by Christ’s will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything — sex and taxes, war and the price of oil — will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It’s a good old boy’s club blessed by God.

As Jeff has reported, the Family owns a C Street house in which–at least as recently as 2002 or 2003–Ensign lived.

The brothers also served at the Family’s four-story, redbrick Washington town house, a former convent at 133 C Street S.E. complete with stained-glass windows. Eight congressmen—including Senator Ensign and seven representatives—lived there, brothers in Christ just like us, only more powerful. We scrubbed their toilets, hoovered their carpets, polished their silver.

And in his book, Jeff reported that Coburn lived in the house when still a Congressman.

The rules forbid Brownback to reveal the names of his fellow members, but those in the [prayer] cell likely include some of the men with whom he lived in the Family’s C Street House for congressmen: Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee, former representative Steve Largent of Oklahoma, and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, then a representative …

In other words, the Ensign-Coburn "home" Read more →