WASHINGTON — Embattled Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., announced Thursday night that he will resign from office in early May, a move that comes amid an ethics investigation into his conduct.
“While I stand behind my firm belief that I have not violated any law, rule, or standard of conduct of the Senate, and I have fought to prove this publicly, I will not continue to subject my family, my constituents, or the Senate to any further rounds of investigation, depositions, drawn out proceedings, or especially public hearings,” Ensign said in a statement posted on his website. “For my family and me, this continued personal cost is simply too great.”
Ensign’s resignation, first reported by Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston, will be official May 3 and follows by six weeks his announcement that he would retire at the end of his current term, which expires in early 2013.
The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating Ensign’s handling of an affair with a former political aide whose husband was also an aide.
Earlier this year, the committee hired an outside counsel to begin a more formal phase, which probably would have led to a public hearing on formal allegations against the senator or the public release of its allegations.
With Ensign gone from the Senate, the Ethics Committee will have no jurisdiction in the matter and probably will keep private the results of its 20-month investigation.
In June 2009, Ensign publicly admitted that he had an affair with Cynthia Hampton, his political treasurer, who was married to Doug Hampton, Ensign’s administrative assistant. In 2008, Ensign dismissed both Hamptons from his payroll. Ensign’s parents, casino magnates, paid the Hampton family $96,000 in what was labeled gift income.
Doug Hampton returned to Las Vegas and began working as a lobbyist for a consulting firm run by Ensign’s top political advisers. Doug Hampton has alleged that Ensign helped him line up his first clients and that the senator helped arrange meetings for him with White House officials.
A Justice Department investigation into possible criminal activity by Ensign ended with no charges.
