GOP committee paid son of Ensign's mistress during affair

Los Angeles Times ^ | June 17, 2009 | Ashley Powers and Richard Simon

[americanophile]

Reporting from Washington and Las Vegas -- The 19-year-old son of a woman who reportedly had an affair with Nevada Sen. John Ensign was being paid by the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the relationship, federal election records show.

Brandon Hampton, who shares an address with former Ensign staffers Doug and Cynthia Hampton, was paid $5,400 between March 2008 and August 2008.

The payments, for "research policy consulting," ended the same month as the affair, which was said to begin in December 2007.

Ensign staffers and committee officials did not return calls seeking comment.

[americanophile]

Oh boy, just when we were making some headway on building consensus against the One's policies, this comes along. Thanks John!

[GeronL]

This is getting more media coverage than all of the scandals in the WH. Anyone surprised?

[americanophile]

"paid by the National Republican Senatorial Committee"

They wonder why little old Republican women don't want to send in their $20 contributions? How disgusting.

[americanophile]

This will dominate all discussions now.

[FreepShop1]

5 grand? Compare with Jesse Jackson’s $220,000 in compensation to his bitch—which the media never covered.

[americanophile]

The Democratic coalition...membership has its privileges.

[americanophile]

National Republican Senatorial Committee Ronald Reagan Republican Center 425 2nd Street NE Washington, DC 20002 Telephone: (202) 675-6000 E-mail: info@nrsc.org

[Elpasser]

It is stupid and disingenuous to say this was the result of the affair.

Wasn’t the woman’s (wronged) husband an Ensign staffer? If so, what’s so unusual about his son getting on the payroll?

[what's up]

Uh...the son was doing work for the RNC.

Where's the scandal?

[americanophile]

Please...talk about an appearance of impropriety. This stinks, and you know it.

[Sir_Ed]

We are so screwed.

Ensign’s a corrupt creep, not worthy of being a US senator.

He needs to resign. Now.

This was a payoff, it’s obvious, and he revealed the affair only when the father of the son he paid off wanted a bigger piece of the bribe.

Resign, Senator Ensign...we don’t need these corrupt politicians in office, regardless of their party.

Resign.

Ed

[cydcharisse]

There haven’t been any sex scandals in this White House yet.

Sex trumps everything.

[americanophile]

Ensign has a husband and wife team working for him, he's banging the wife and he gets her kid a job at the NRSC for $5000+ a month for what I'm sure was critical policy research, and then the moment the affair stops the money does too...in August 2008 no less, nothing political going on then.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Eating, drinking, copulating, evacuating their bowels and snoring; that is what we pay our politicians to do. Day in and Day out.

[what's up]

he gets her kid a job at the NRSC for $5000+ a month

Who says Ensign got the kid his job?

The whole family are activists...it follows that the RNC might offer the kid a job.

And you didn't read the article carefully....not $5000 a month. $5000 for 5 months = $1000/mo.

$1000 a month job for probable valid work is headlining the news when the IG has found massive fraud in Americorps. See any bias here?

[SunkenCiv]

• Ensign to Acknowledge Extramarital Affair
• Sen. Ensign Resigns GOP Leadership Post After Admitting Affair

[what's up]

Where's the 10's of thousands Charlie Rangel skimmed from not paying taxes on his Dominican Republic property?

Why the big news on a piddly $5,000 that was likely earned? Oh, yeah...repubs get shafted...I forgot.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Thanks for sniffing this out.

[trumandogz]

Must be smart 19 year old kid.

[El Cid]

Having an adulterous relationship is wrong.
Hiring an activist 'youth' - assuming he was doing some actual work - is not wrong.
This part of the story is just smoke and mirrors. Why ignore the real scandals pouring down around the current Administration and the Pelosi Congress (what exactly came of her claims that the CIA was lying?)?
Oh that's right, the LA Times and their ilk are an arm of the DNC. Their job is to cover and provide smoke...