We just told you about Doug Hampton’s allegation that Sen. Tom Coburn urged his friend Sen. John Ensign to pay “restitution” money to the Hamptons on account of Ensign’s affair with Hampton’s wife. And now Coburn is denying the claim.
Roll Call reports:
Coburn repeatedly denied allegations that he urged Ensign to pay Doug Hampton, the husband of his mistress Cynthia, millions in hush money following a confrontation with Hampton. “I categorically deny everything he said,” Coburn said.
Coburn also said he won’t reveal — even as part of a Senate ethics probe or legal proceeding — what he told Ensign during the now-famous February 2008 confrontation over the affair, because he was acting in his capacity as a doctor and a deacon.
Said Coburn:
I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon. … That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody.
When asked how he got involved, Coburn said: “Ya’ll don’t know about all the people I’ve counseled.”