John Ensign

Ensign Divorces His Wife

July 22, 2019 · 6:07 pm ET · Leave a Comment

Former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), “who resigned amid ethics investigations in 2011, finalized a divorce from his wife of 31 years last week,” the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.

“Ensign’s political career started to unravel after revelations that he’d had an affair with Cindy Hampton, the wife of his Senate administrative aide, Doug Hampton. Ensign dismissed Doug Hampton from his Senate office after the affair came to light, and Ensign’s parents made a $96,000 payment to the Hampton family that Doug Hampton said was a severance payment.”

Documents Reveal Details of Ensign Investigation

December 29, 2014 · 10:00 pm ET · 3 Comments

Three years after the fall of former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), “thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents reveal new details about the evidence the F.B.I. gathered against Mr. Ensign,” the New York Times reports.

“Although the broad outlines of the case against Mr. Ensign have been made public, the documents disclose for the first time how much Mr. Ensign strong-armed political donors and business associates in 2008 to find lobbying work for Douglas Hampton, a top aide and close friend. Mr. Ensign was seeking the work in an attempt to placate Mr. Hampton because Mr. Ensign had an affair with Mr. Hampton’s wife, Cynthia Hampton, a campaign aide.”

“But the records indicate that the investigation took a sharp turn as prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Mr. Ensign, even though his colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee, in a rare step, urged the Justice Department to consider seeking criminal charges.”