Posted on 06/16/2009 3:30:45 PM PDT by pissant
Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign has told colleagues that he plans to admit an extramarital affair, a senior Republican official tells POLITICO.
Political insiders in the Senate and in Nevada told POLITICO that Ensign began an affair with a staffer several months after he separated from his wife. When Ensign reconciled with his wife, the sources said, he gave the aide a severance package and parted ways.
Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money – at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public.
Ensign’s office did not return calls for comment, but the senator told the Associated Press Tuesday: "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions."
Ensign’s staff said he would be making a statement about a “personal matter” at 3:30 p.m. local time in Las Vegas.
Ensign informed fellow Nevadan Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, about his situation earlier today.
"I don't know the details. I talked with him today,” Reid told POLITICO. “Of course, he's my friend. This is a private, family matter. I just hope that Darlene and he work things out."
Reid said he didn’t offer any advice on how to handle the situation. "I didn't give him any advice. I just told him he's my friend. I'm pulling for him. Anything I can do to help, let me know.”
Ensign, a born again Christian, is chairman of the GOP Policy Committee, making him the highest ranking Republican Senator in Nevada’s history. He has three children. Ensign’s wife Darlene, in a statement to the Las Vegas Sun, said: "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger," Mrs. Ensign said.
Ensign was absent on Capitol Hill Tuesday, skipping the weekly lunch that his committee hosts for GOP senators and its ensuing press conference where party leaders espouse their weekly message.
Word of his expected announcement stunned colleagues, who were preparing for this summer’s big battles over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor and a health care fight but now have to contend with a drama hovering over one of their leaders.
Elected in 2000, the 51-year-old Ensign has moved up the leadership chain in the Senate. As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008, Ensign oversaw the devastating losses to GOP candidates. But his party largely spared him of blame, casting it instead on an unpopular president who dragged down the party’s brand. Since then, Ensign has sought to articulate conservative principles and is a mainstay at GOP press conferences deriding Democrats’ domestic policies.
Ensign ran for the Senate in 1998 against Sen. Harry Reid in a nasty, cliffhanger race that Reid – now the Senate majority leader – won by a razor-thin 428 votes. Reid and Ensign have since reached a détente; neither man criticizes the other back home by name.
A staunch fiscal and social conservative, Ensign has been considered a rising star in his party, recently making headlines by speaking at events in Iowa, raising speculation about his interest in a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.
It’s not clear exactly how this affair will affect Ensign’s future in the Senate. When former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested for soliciting sex in an airport men’s room in the summer of 2007, Ensign was among Craig’s toughest critics, saying he should step down since he had been charged with a crime.
Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money – at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public.
Seems Sen Ensign wasn't going for the blackmail attempt and now the guy's wife is thrust into the spotlight along with his blackmail attempt. I bet she just thinks the world of him now.
He should definitely lose any security clearance he has.
May be some idiots on our side should demand his resignation and give the left wing liberal even a bigger majority in the Senate.
“By your same “biblical” standard anyone who divorced and marries again or dates is also an adulterer.”
Your statement is biblically correct.
If you’ve divorced and remarried (for any reason other than the other spouse’s sexual infidelity, you’re an adulterer. That’s biblical. You can be forgiven, of course. In reading the passage at the end of this post, I can’t see how it would apply to the wife only, and not also to the husband.
Thank God for the free gift of Salvation in Christ, for we have all sinned.
Matthew 5:31-32 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”
I'm divorced and remarried, and, with regard to the adultery issue - ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.
Either you stand for your principles or you don’t. I am tired of hypocrites...in both parties...Say “Goodnight, John.”
Big deal. He was seperated from his wife and began it several months after he seperated. Sounds like the woman sought his affections only to blackmail him.
Oh well, men will be men.
Well such "men" should not be in a position where they are privy to matters of national security.
Let me ask you a simple question: Did you fornicate before you got married? If so then that it is a sin and you need to STFU before you judge other people of hypocrisy.
This just doesnt strike me as scandalous. He and his wife were not together at the time.
Yeah, my divorce took 2 years. I started dating my current husband after my ex moved out (in with another woman) and I filed legal papers. I do not consider THAT an affair. However, if this woman was married and not separated, that is wrong.
You did not answer my question hypocrite, did you fornicate before you got married?
“By your same “biblical” standard anyone who divorced and marries again or dates is also an adulterer.”
Generally true but there are exceptions in the Bible.
Getting divorced because “we’ve grown apart” isn’t one of them though.
It is an issue because of blackmail.
And that was the whole point most people missed about Monicagate. It was a security issue. Did the ChiComs have the goods on Clinton before everybody else? Who knows.
Hypocrite or not he was screwing somebody elses wife while serving as a United States Senator. Stupid would seem to apply. Coveting thy neighbors wife? Yup, that too. Giving the left another Republican whipping boy? Yup.
So while I don't know if he is a hypocrite I do know that he is a dumb sumbitch who should keep his hands off other peoples wives.
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