By Elizabeth Crum / Nevada News Bureau
With yesterday’s preemptive, hastily announced resignation, Senator John Ensign’s graceless fall from grace continued.
Despite stating he is leaving office in order to spare his family and constituents any further stress, the timing — shortly after an Senate Ethics Committee quietly voted to continue their 22-month investigation, possibly via public hearings — made the cause of Ensign’s departure evident. The specter of the falling axe sent the senator scurrying for the exit when nothing else would.
Ensign thought — or at least fervently hoped — his decision not to seek a third term was the end of an ugly political affair birthed months after an almost inconceivable conception: a shocking and sordid personal affair with the wife of a dear friend and top aide, fertilized and fed by Ensign’s ego. The junior senator’s parents were not only complicit but participatory in the attempted cover up, issuing a series of “gift” checks to the Hamptons totaling $96,000. The Federal Elections Commission saw fit to take the Ensigns’ expanatory affidavit at face value and dismiss a Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) complaint regarding the payments.
But the saga may not be over, even yet. The sequel and (we can only hope) final episode is pending and tied to the fate Doug Hampton, former Ensign staffer and cuckhold, who now stands indicted on seven counts of illegal lobbying. Should Hampton produce damning evidence of Ensign ethics violations in his own legal defense, as he has hinted he may, the Department of Justice may take a second look at the senator.
In addition, even after Ensign vacates his seat on May 3, the Senate Ethics Committee may release some or all of the evidence it has gathered. This may also motivate the Justice Department to get off its legal duff and move forward with an investigation and possible indictment. Indeed, the committee’s statement yesterday hinted it was in possession of serious findings when it said the resignation of Nevada’s junior senator was “the appropriate decision”.
Many Nevadans disagree, believing Ensign’s so-called appropriate choice came far too long after his initial inappropriate act and subsequent machinations to be considered befitting behavior for a United States Senator. The time for doing the right and proper thing is long past, they say. Their disgraced native son–once on the probable short list for the vice presidency on a near-future national ticket–has done too little, too late.
It is said it is never too late for redemption, but Ensign’s resignation will be an unprecedented, indelible black mark on Nevada’s already tarnished political history books. It is a legacy the already embattled Battle Born State could do without
