More nuggets are being reported from Doug Hampton's interview with Nightline, set to air tonight, about Sen. John Ensign's affair with Hampton's wife. And they somehow make the Nevada senator look even worse than he already did, if that's possible.
Politico, which seems to have gotten a look at the full interview, reports:
South Carolina's ethics commission is investigating 37 allegations of lawbreaking by Gov. Mark Sanford in connection with travel and use of campaign funds -- charges his lawyer described just last week as "minor, technical matters."
Sanford is accused of violating ethics laws barring officials from buying high-priced airfare -- including on trips to visit his lover in Argentina last year -- as well as using state airplanes for personal travel, The State reports.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (10) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Yesterday on ABC News's This Week, there was an exchange between Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and host George Stephanopoulos about Coburn's role as an "intermediary" between Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Doug Hampton, the man with whose wife the Nevada senator had an affair. And it's hard to know what to make of it.
From the transcript:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (20) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)South Carolina lawmakers will next week take up impeachment proceedings against disgraced governor Mark Sanford.
House Judiciary committee chair Jim Harrison told the AP that an ad hoc panel of four Republicans and three Democrats will begin meeting Tuesday. Harrison said he expects a resolution to impeach will be ready before Christmas. That would then be considered by the full committee.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Doug Hampton's campaign to bring down the man who slept with his wife continues.
Hampton's latest blast at Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) came in a sit-down with ABC News's Nightline. In excerpts teased on the ABC News site, Hampton doubles down on his contention that the $96,000 he and his wife received from Ensign's parents, after the affair was discovered, was a severance package, not a gift as Ensign has claimed. A severance payment would have violated campaign-finance laws.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Is the Justice Department leaning towards laying off Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)?
That's the direction in which Politico's reporting seems to point. According to the new site, DOJ officials "signal that the case is a low-priority matter for them." It adds that "no one close to Ensign or the Hamptons has been contacted by any federal investigators." And it notes that the Senate Ethics committee, which usually stands down when Justice is involved, has been forging ahead with its probe of the philandering Nevada senator.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (12) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)The remaining 14 months of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's term may be about to get still more excruciating. The state ethics panel announced today it is moving ahead with its investigation of Sanford's travel and use of state funds in connection with his affair with an Argentinian woman, The State reports.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.
Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (58) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (15)Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) had some good times and some bad times at the Christian home on C Street that he's lived in since 1995. But now, reports the Las Vegas Sun, he's moved out.
According to the paper, Ensign was not pushed out, but rather left on his own, out of a desire to spare the house's residents any further unwanted publicity. The New York Times had reported late last month that, according two of the senator's friends, he was making plans to move out.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Hot Mike Duvall -- who stepped down as a state lawmaker after his raucous sexual braggadocio was picked up by a live microphone -- is getting off.
The California Republican won't face federal charges in connection to the incident, the local U.S. attorney's office announced today.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)
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