Ensign investigation back in the spotlight

Newly public documents shed additional light on the Justice Department’s investigation of a campaign finance and personal scandal that brought down former Nevada Sen. John Ensign (R).

The documents, obtained by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) through a lawsuit, provide greater detail on what the FBI knew about Ensign’s efforts to recruit lobbying clients for former aide Douglas Hampton.

Hampton’s wife Cynthia was engaged in an affair with Ensign from 2007 through 2008. Both she and her husband were fired by Ensign and then received $96,000 from Ensign’s parents.

{mosads}At issue during the Justice Department investigation — and a parallel probe by the Senate Ethics Committee — was whether Ensign had worked with Douglas Hampton to circumvent laws that prevent Senate staffers from lobbying immediately after leaving their jobs.

The department decided to indict Hampton, but not Ensign. The Senate Ethics Committee recommended that the department consider criminal charges against the senator.

CREW, which pushed for the FBI investigation into Ensign, claims that the documents show that the Justice Department failed to prosecute the powerful senator despite having evidence he had participated in illegal activity.

The documents reveal that Ensign arranged a meeting between then-Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and the CEO of an airline Hampton represented that was facing a pending enforcement action from the Department of Transportation.

In one document, Hampton thanks Ensign for helping him obtain the airline as a client.

The group says that the documents provide details about how Ensign worked to obtain lobbying jobs for Hampton. The senator was reportedly angry that an unidentified individual failed to help a second unidentified individual, who CREW says is likely Hampton, find a job, according to one account provided to the FBI. A witness called Ensign’s efforts to aid Hampton “extremely brazen.”

A woman who answered the phone at an animal hospital now operated by Ensign, a veterinarian, said he was not speaking with reporters at this time. Ensign resigned from the Senate as a result of the scandal.

The documents also demonstrate, CREW says, that the Justice Department chose not to indict Ensign for campaign finance violations based largely on the testimony of his father and a second witness.