Asked about Doug Hampton's tactics, John Ensign looked at a reporter, smiled and walked away. | Composite image by POLITICO One-man crusade taking toll on Ensign

Five months after Sen. John Ensign admitted to having an extramarital affair with a staffer, the scandal is still in the headlines — in large part because the husband of his onetime lover keeps making them.

Doug Hampton’s latest stop: “Nightline.”


A month after sitting down for hours of interviews with The New York Times, the former Ensign aide — and husband of Ensign’s mistress, Cynthia Hampton — has taped hours of additional interviews with the nationally televised ABC program, which will air a story based on them next week.

Republicans in Nevada and Washington say Hampton is on a crusade against Ensign — one aimed at weakening the Nevada Republican politically and ultimately forcing him out of office.

“Usually, these types of things are handled directly with the investigative body, whether it is the Ethics Committee or the Department of Justice, and the protagonists don’t speak until there’s either a court date or testimony transcripts are released,” said Eric Ueland, former chief of staff to then- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). “So this is certainly unprecedented.”

“He’s got a strategy on this,” said Ryan Erwin, a Las Vegas-based GOP strategist who is friends with both men. “I think every one of his moves is choreographed.”

Hampton could not be reached for comment. Asked about Hampton’s tactics, Ensign looked at a reporter, smiled and walked away.

The Senate ethics committee has launched a preliminary investigation into Ensign’s conduct. Because the committee works in secret, the scope of the probe is not yet known.

The Justice Department has not yet decided whether to launch an investigation, sources said, and it remains unclear whether the department ultimately will pursue a criminal inquiry against the senator.

Hampton’s interviews with the Times yielded a story that was full of damaging allegations about Ensign’s conduct after the affair ended. Those interviews followed an earlier public session in July, when Hampton spoke on the local Las Vegas show “Face to Face,” telling host Jon Ralston that Ensign gave Cynthia Hampton severance pay worth more than $25,000 — money that if left unreported to the Federal Election Commission could result in a felony charge for the senator.

Ensign’s aides have said the money was not severance, and they subsequently revealed that the senator’s parents gave a “gift” of $96,000 to the Hamptons once the couple left the senator’s payroll.

Republicans are clearly worried about what Hampton will say this time around — and the next.

Asked about Hampton’s anti-Ensign campaign, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) said: “I don’t recall ever seeing one like this.”

But even as Republicans in Nevada and Washington brace for the worst, Ensign may be able to ride out the storm, according to senior GOP officials in both states. By pressuring Ensign to resign, the GOP could face a distracting intraparty squabble just as it prepares to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in what will very likely be the most contested race of the 2010 midterm elections.

And after seeing the media frenzy from their unsuccessful efforts to push Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) from office after he was caught in a bathroom sex sting in 2007, GOP leaders believe it’s better to avoid commenting on the matter.

If Ensign were to resign, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican, would choose an interim replacement who would serve until a permanent replacement was elected next November — forcing Republicans to focus on two seats when they want to concentrate all their ability on Reid.

The GOP’s silence-is-golden approach on Ensign is “not a conscious strategy,” said Robert List, a Republican National Committeeman and former governor of Nevada. “It’s the evolution of where it fits in the matrix of what people are genuinely concerned about right now. People are fired up at Sen. Reid; that’s where the focus is.”

Last weekend, List and about 200 other people attended a state Republican Party meeting in rural Nevada. He said Ensign’s name was barely mentioned.

Absent a damaging new revelation, List said, “I think the essence of the whole story is pretty much out there.”

Indeed, Erwin, the Nevada GOP strategist, said that even though Ensign continues to suffer “another cut every few weeks,” the question of whether Ensign can survive may depend on whether Hampton can continue to provide fresh material.

There seems to be no end of it.

The New York Times reported that Ensign and Hampton took an official congressional delegation to Iraq in February 2008 and that Ensign called Hampton’s wife there by telephone. POLITICO has learned that Hampton was brought on the trip, which also went to Afghanistan, despite the fact that he did not have a security clearance — and that Ensign was the only senator not to bring a military adviser on the trip.

After the trip, it became apparent to people who knew both men that they had feuded abroad, sources said. Days later, there was a major confrontation at the Capitol Hill home where Ensign lived with several senators, including Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another trip attendee.

Ethics experts say the codel — which records show cost more than $10,000 per person — could cause additional ethical problems for Ensign if investigators look at how Ensign used his public office during the affair.