By Peter J. Henning
A report filed by the Special Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics accuses former Nevada Senator John Ensign of a number of violations related to the end of an affair he had with the wife of a top aide who was also a long-time friend of his family. The aide, Douglas Hampton, was indicted on charges of violating the federal conflict of interest rules this past March, and there is a good chance Mr. Ensign will also be targeted by federal prosecutors.
Much like his former Senate colleague John Edwards is a target of an investigation based on payments to a former mistress, as I discussed previously, Mr. Ensign’s problem was not so much the affair but how he tried to keep it quiet through a secret pay-off. After ending his intimate relationship with Cindy Hampton, who worked as treasurer of his campaign committee, Mr. Ensign terminated both Hamptons and arranged for them to receive $96,000 from a trust fund controlled by his parents. How that payment should be characterized will be crucial in determining whether the former senator will be indicted by prosecutors from the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, who have been investigating him for over a year.
The Special Counsel’s report reads almost like a prosecution memorandum, setting out the facts of the relationship between Mr. Ensign and the Hamptons, and offering assessments of whether his conduct constituted a violation of federal criminal laws. The former senator does not appear to have set out to purposely violate federal law, but his efforts to keep the affair quiet by placating the Hamptons with money and work for Mr. Hampton may well have led to Mr. Ensign to commit criminal acts.
The charges against Mr. Hampton involve alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 207(e)(2), which makes it a crime when a highly-paid member of a senator’s staff within 1 year of leaving the position “knowingly makes, with the intent to influence, any communication to or appearance before any senator or any officer or employee of the Senate, on behalf of any other person” in which the former staffer seeks action by a senator or staff member. Mr. Hampton had numerous contacts with Mr. Ensign, who assisted him by contacting government officials on behalf of Mr. Hampton’s clients.
While Mr. Ensign might try to plead ignorance of what Mr. Hampton was doing, the Special Counsel’s Report goes into great detail about how the former senator pressured companies to hire his former aide, all part of an effort to keep Mr. Hampton from speaking out about the affair with his wife. There does not appear to be much “plausible deniability” here for Mr. Ensign, so proving his knowledge and intent to provide assistance to Mr. Hampton would not appear to be difficult. In addition, a charge of conspiracy is quite possible, based on the interactions of Mr. Ensign and Mr. Hampton.
A more difficult issue, and one with much greater potential ramifications, is characterizing the $96,000 payment to the Hamptons after being terminated from their jobs with the Senate office and campaign. The money came from an Ensign family trust controlled by t
By Peter J. Henning
The criminal investigation of former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards for secretly funneling money to his ex-lover Rielle Hunter is moving toward a conclusion, and there is a good chance he will be indicted if federal prosecutors can link the payments to his campaign committee or find that contributors were deceived about the purpose of the donations.
Voicemails released by North Carolina television station WTVD show Edwards’ connection to keeping his affair with Ms. Hunter secret. An NBC New report in February disclosed that federal prosecutors were planning to take the deposition of one of the sources of nearly $1 million used to keep Ms. Hunter out of sight while she was pregnant with their child.
The investigation into payments made to Ms. Hunter while Mr. Edwards was running for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President has been going on for almost two years. According to campaign records, she was purportedly paid for producing campaign videos. A former top aide to Mr. Edwards, Andrew Young, originally claimed to be the father of the child, but has now turned on his former boss and described in detail how large sums were provided to support Ms. Hunter, who is not a target of the investigation.
Sex scandals involving politicians normally just end the person’s political career, at least in this country. And paying off a secret lover to buy silence is not normally a crime, at least when the politician uses his own money. According to Mr. Young, however, the money came from wealthy donors, including $700,000 from Rachel “Bunny” Melloon, an aged wealthy patron of Mr. Edwards, who gave personal checks hidden in candy boxes.
The funds provided for Ms. Hunter pose a problem for Mr. Edwards if the money was collected for his presidential campaign committee and instead was tapped to make payments on her behalf, or even given directly to her. Politicians once viewed their campaign accounts as something akin to a personal piggy bank, and the money can still be used for a number of things that have little to do with actually running for office, like paying for an attorney to defend against an ethics investigation or even a criminal investigation.
Mr. Edwards would not be the target of a grand jury investigation were it not for a provision added to the federal campaign finance laws in 2002 as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. That law, codified at 2 U.S.C. § 439a, states that a campaign contribution or donation “shall not be converted by any person to personal use.” The statute contains a list of uses that would be considered “personal,” such as buying clothes or paying for a vacation. While it does not specifically list payments to an ex-lover to keep the person quiet while running for President, that would certainly seem to come within the term “personal use.”
The issue for prosecutors is whether the money passed through Mr. Edwards’ campaign committee, or whether it was simply presented to donors as a way to “support” the candidate but never intended to be a campaign contribution. Federal law imposes strict reporting requirements on campaign contributions, and limits donations to an individual candidate to $2,500. The amount of money collected on behalf of Ms. Hunter clearly exceeded statutory limitations, which may show that the payments were never meant to be related directly to Mr. Edwards’ short-lived campaign for the presidency. Apart from the campaign finance issue is the question of whether financial support provided to Ms. Hunter was properly reported a
