Posted on 06/16/2009 3:30:45 PM PDT by pissant
Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign has told colleagues that he plans to admit an extramarital affair, a senior Republican official tells POLITICO.
Political insiders in the Senate and in Nevada told POLITICO that Ensign began an affair with a staffer several months after he separated from his wife. When Ensign reconciled with his wife, the sources said, he gave the aide a severance package and parted ways.
Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money – at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public.
Ensign’s office did not return calls for comment, but the senator told the Associated Press Tuesday: "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions."
Ensign’s staff said he would be making a statement about a “personal matter” at 3:30 p.m. local time in Las Vegas.
Ensign informed fellow Nevadan Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, about his situation earlier today.
"I don't know the details. I talked with him today,” Reid told POLITICO. “Of course, he's my friend. This is a private, family matter. I just hope that Darlene and he work things out."
Reid said he didn’t offer any advice on how to handle the situation. "I didn't give him any advice. I just told him he's my friend. I'm pulling for him. Anything I can do to help, let me know.”
Ensign, a born again Christian, is chairman of the GOP Policy Committee, making him the highest ranking Republican Senator in Nevada’s history. He has three children. Ensign’s wife Darlene, in a statement to the Las Vegas Sun, said: "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger," Mrs. Ensign said.
Ensign was absent on Capitol Hill Tuesday, skipping the weekly lunch that his committee hosts for GOP senators and its ensuing press conference where party leaders espouse their weekly message.
Word of his expected announcement stunned colleagues, who were preparing for this summer’s big battles over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor and a health care fight but now have to contend with a drama hovering over one of their leaders.
Elected in 2000, the 51-year-old Ensign has moved up the leadership chain in the Senate. As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008, Ensign oversaw the devastating losses to GOP candidates. But his party largely spared him of blame, casting it instead on an unpopular president who dragged down the party’s brand. Since then, Ensign has sought to articulate conservative principles and is a mainstay at GOP press conferences deriding Democrats’ domestic policies.
Ensign ran for the Senate in 1998 against Sen. Harry Reid in a nasty, cliffhanger race that Reid – now the Senate majority leader – won by a razor-thin 428 votes. Reid and Ensign have since reached a détente; neither man criticizes the other back home by name.
A staunch fiscal and social conservative, Ensign has been considered a rising star in his party, recently making headlines by speaking at events in Iowa, raising speculation about his interest in a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.
It’s not clear exactly how this affair will affect Ensign’s future in the Senate. When former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested for soliciting sex in an airport men’s room in the summer of 2007, Ensign was among Craig’s toughest critics, saying he should step down since he had been charged with a crime.
Two points - first, if he was separated but still married, it is still an affair. Second, it appears the woman involved was also married.
I'm glad he and his wife apparently worked it out, but this will still cause political headaches.
If having an affair as a Congress critter is the criteria to lose your security clearance, half of them wouldn't be allowed to enter the chambers
Works for me.
jveritas, are you without sin?
we do not know if he knew she was married.
and women will be gold diggers evidently
So the husband is scott free?
Well, since she was one of his employees, I assume he knew her marital status.. However, even if he didn't know, it is still adultery. It may mitigate his culpability on that score, but he was still involved in a sexual relationship with another woman while he was still married. That constitutes an affair.
How Hamiltonian...
Jesus said it best, God wants people to stay married for their entire lives, but for the hardness of the hearts God gave Moses a writ of divorce for adultery, but anything outside of that is a grave sin...
Ya’ wanna argue with me over that, argue it with The Big Guy up in Heaven...He made the rules, not I!
Ed
LOL. There you go, the silver lining.
During a rough time in his personal life the man made a personal mistake. Now, it appears that he and his family have worked through a painful period and are trying to get on with their lives. The other woman was dismissed and given severance which is considerably more than she might have gotten had the Senator's wife decided she preferred revenge over being married to her husband. Unfortunately for the other woman, it looks like her husband was more interested in money than in his wife or her reputation. Now he will likely have lots of time in a very small place to contemplate the error of his felonious mistake.
You read my mind.
When he confessed after an attempted blackmail, there is no reason to lose a clearance. If anything, it does show a considerable degree of integrity. Doesn't excuse his behavior, but he owned up to it.
He also seems to have tried to make sure the other woman wasn't harmed financially. Think a democrat would have done the same?
I'll add this much, pretty much the same I said about Clinton and Lewinsky.
Because of the unequal power distribution between the Senator and the staffer, even consensual sex could still be considered sexual harrassment in the workplace, and at the least it creates a hostile work environment to the others who work there.
-PJ
Can we really be sure that he won’t do it again, and open himself up once again to blackmail? His word means nothing, based on him breaking the biggest promise he made in his life. Why take the chance?
I wonder how long the aide worked for him?
Seems to me the woman’s husband should be charged with attempted extortion...
Why?
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