John Ensign Sex Scandal Remembered | Rachel Maddow | MS… — Transcript

Okay, it was June 1st, 2009. The country had just inaugurated a brand new president. Barack Obama was a few months into year one of his presidency, but already in the spring of 2009, Republicans were starting to think about who they could run the next time around in order to beat him and make him a one-term president. In that June, on June 1st, 2009, one of those Republicans who saw himself as the guy who could beat Barack Obama, he traveled to Iowa in order to test out his presidential stump speech.

Imagine a country that actually respects the Constitution enough where we appoint judges and justices to the Supreme Court that respect the Constitution, that protect the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment. That's the kind of America I want to see together. You and I, that's the kind of America we can build. That's the kind of America we will build if we care enough. Will you join me in that effort?

Very smooth. That was Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada turning up in Iowa of all places to test the presidential waters in 2009. And it was not just that speech in Sioux City, Iowa.

John Ensign also traveled to nearby Le Mars, Iowa, where he stopped at a local ice cream parlor to glad hand Iowa voters and and to again deliver a speech touting his conservative credentials and laying the groundwork for a John Ensign presidential run maybe someday. That was June 1st, 2009.

In a matter of two weeks, John Ensign's presidential campaign was very much over.

Last year, I had an affair.

I violated the vows of my marriage.

It's absolutely the worst thing that I've ever done in my life.

I will not mention any names, but the woman who was I was involved with and her husband.

We're both close friends and they both worked for me. Our families were very close.

That closeness put me into situations during a very difficult time in my marriage, which led to my inappropriate behavior.

On June 1st, John Ensign was a Republican presidential hopeful, tramping all over Iowa. 15 days later, not only was he not ever going to be president, he was potentially heading for the clink.

That announcement from John Ensign in June 2009 set off one of the more incredible congressional scandals that we have seen in a very long time. And it revolved around John Ensign and his long-time friend and top Senate staffer, Doug Hampton.

Okay, go back a couple of years before we just showed you. Go back to November 2007. Doug Hampton and his wife Cindy and their kids, they live in a nice house.

In a nice place called Summerlin, Nevada.

It's basically a suburb of Las Vegas on the west side.

And in November 2007, their very nice home was burglarized.

In the aftermath of their house being broken into, the Hamptons moved in with their very dear friends.

The Ensign family.

The Hamptons not only both worked for John Ensign, Doug was a top Senate aide to John Ensign, Cindy Hampton did bookkeeping for John Ensign's campaign organizations. They were not only both employed by John Ensign, the Ensign family and the Hampton family were very close. They took vacations together, they socialized together, they spent a lot of time together.

And after the Hampton's home was burglarized, they needed a place to stay and they stayed with their friends, the Ensigns.

And that apparently seems to have been where the trouble began.

The break-in happened November 2007.

The following month, Christmas time 2007, Doug Hampton came across text messages on his wife's phone, which led him to the conclusion that his wife and Senator Ensign were having an affair.

Needless to say, there was a confrontation.

Both families sat down together, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth, it was a big mistake, it's never going to happen again.

But apparently, after the New Year, and into January and February 2008, the affair kept going.

Which is amazing.

Because Doug Hampton was still working every day very closely at the time with John Ensign.

Up to and including John Ensign and Doug Hampton going together on a trip to Iraq.

In February 2008, while they were in Iraq together on this congressional delegation, Doug Hampton discovered yet more evidence that his wife and his employer, the Senator,

were still, for lack of a better term, shnuffing.

Quote, I was having problems with my phone, so I asked John, hey, can I use your phone? I want to call Cindy. He said, sure.

In his contacts list, he instead scrolls to Aunt Judy.

Not Cindy Hampton, but Aunt Judy?

Like that was his covert cover-up name for Cindy Hampton.

And then I realize, wow, something is seriously wrong.

What are you doing when you're in Iraq in the middle of a war zone with your boss and you realize your boss is still sleeping with your wife?

Apparently what you do is you call your boss's roommates back home in Washington.

John Ensign was a very conservative Senator, publicly pious, religious right Senator.

He lived at the C Street House in Washington, which was a shared rooming house for members of Congress who were all part of a religious fellowship group that's often shortened as C Street.

You may remember a few years ago, we spent a lot of time covering C Street here on this show.

After coming back from Iraq, Doug Hampton contacted the religious conservative lawmakers and their sort of spiritual advisor, a guy named Doug Coe.

And asked them to intervene with Senator John Ensign to get him to stop this affair.

Quote, Hampton said that on Valentine's Day 2008, the C Street leadership and Coburn helped him confront Ensign.

Quote, Tom really kind of takes the helm, Hampton recalled. Oh, he's smoking. He is one upset man.

And then John kind of breaks down, saying, I made a mistake, I really screwed up.

The group at C Street in this intervention, they forced Senator John Ensign to write a letter.

This letter.

And send it to Cindy Hampton, a letter ending their relationship.

And the letter is a doozy, right?

Cindy, this is the most important letter that I've ever written.

What I did with you was wrong.

I was completely self-centered and only thinking of myself.

I used you for my own pleasure, not letting thoughts of you, Doug, Brandon, Blake or Brittany come into my mind.

I betrayed everything I believe in.

I lied to myself over and over.

Doug has been a great friend to me over the years and I threw all of that away over wanting to feel good.

There's some stuff about restoring their relationships with God.

And basically the point is the whole thing's over, sincerely yours, John.

That letter was sent to Cindy Hampton overnight via Federal Express, but apparently, once the letter had been sent,

Senator John Ensign called Cindy Hampton, told her, yeah, that letter was on its way, but she should ignore it.

He'd been forced to write it and he really didn't mean it.

Two days later, Doug Hampton stood unbelieving in the Las Vegas hotel parking lot, looking at the cars of his wife and employer.

And calling Coe to complain the intervention hadn't worked.

This was February 2008.

After that, there's another confrontation.

But this time, John Ensign told the Hamptons that part of the way this was going to resolve is that they could no longer work for him.

Remember, both the husband and wife, the mother and father in this family, both work for John Ensign.

Now that the affair has happened and has been exposed, it's starting to become kind of a complicated thing for John Ensign with his Senate buddies all knowing about it and all of this stuff.

John Ensign's solution to all this was apparently to fire the woman he's having the affair with and to fire her husband.

But apparently, he decides he's going to sort of try to make it right with them, at least a little bit.

Two things happened thereafter.

Doug Hampton is formally severed from the Senator's payroll in May 2008.

And around that time, around April and May 2008, two things come to pass that basically sort of look like payment.

From Senator John Ensign to the woman he's been having this affair with and the husband who he cuckolded in order to do that.

And the first thing is this. It's a check for $96,000 paid to Doug and Cindy and two of their three children.

I don't know what the other kid did to get left out.

It was written to the family and it was drawn from the account of John Ensign's very wealthy parents.

That's one thing that happens.

The other thing that happens is that John Ensign apparently calls around.

And lines up some lobbying jobs for Doug Hampton.

Okay.

Fast forward a year.

John Ensign is planning his run for president, 2009.

But this whole chapter in his life with the affair and everything, it doesn't seem resolved, at least not resolved enough for him to be running for president.

First of all, the lobbying that Doug Hampton was doing over the last year is illegal.

There's a cooling off period by law that says after you've left the Senate as a top staffer, you can't lobby for a year.

Doug Hampton has been lobbying.

That's one problem.

Another problem is that there are continuing negotiations between the Hamptons and the Ensigns over money.

At one point, pious conservative family values Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma gets involved in the negotiations again.

Reportedly, trying to talk Doug Hampton into receiving a smaller payment from John Ensign than Hampton had been demanding.

Then the whole thing later came to light.

Honestly, when when the whole thing blew up later.

Tom Coburn, when this all came to be publicly known, Tom Coburn was asked by the press to explain exactly what his role had been in trying to negotiate this payment between the Senator and the family of his mistress.

Tom Coburn said he would never reveal his role in those negotiations. He told Roll Call, that is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody.

Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody.

Pounding his chest.

Senator Coburn explained that the reason his role in those financial negotiations was privileged and he would always keep it secret is because he explained when he was talking to John Ensign about how much money to pay the family of his mistress.

Quote, I was counseling him as a physician.

Tom Coburn's medical specialty is obstetrics.

He's an obstetrician.

And who knows, it's possible John Ensign was giving birth at the time he was talking to Tom Coburn about these things, but otherwise,

after those negotiations fell apart.

And John Ensign was heading off to Iowa to stoke his own political fires and make people think of him as a potential president.

Doug Hampton basically took matters into his own hands.

Or at least he took matters to Fox News.

On June 1st, 2009, John Ensign was in Iowa giving his stump speech.

10 days later, on June 11th, Doug Hampton wrote this letter to Megyn Kelly.

Who is a host at the Fox News Channel.

He was basically trying to give her the story.

About Senator Ensign and his affair with his staffer's wife, quoting in part, Senator Ensign's conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife.

Led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving.

But that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.

Doug sent that letter to Fox June 11th.

Fox apparently decided not to pursue it.

Four days later, on June 15th,

he forwarded a copy of that letter to this guy, Senator Rick Santorum.

Friend of John Ensign's from C Street.

He was then working as a Fox News contributor.

He's basically, as far as I can tell, sort of asking Rick Santorum to help.

To intervene in this whole mess on his behalf.

Instead, what Rick Santorum did was he apparently forwarded that email from Doug Hampton.

Forwarded that email straight to John Ensign.

Thereby letting John Ensign know that this was all about to become public.

Rick Santorum tipping him off that he ought to get ahead of the story.

Rick Santorum forwarded that Doug Hampton email to John Ensign on June 15th.

On June 16th, John Ensign went public, gave his press conference, admitting to quote,

absolutely the worst thing I've ever done in my life.

A sex scandal is not a crime.

Adultery is not a crime.

Family values hypocrisy is not a crime.

Illegal lobbying and conspiring to set somebody up to illegally lobby.

That is a crime.

Ultimately, the Senate Ethics Committee investigated John Ensign in this matter.

They hired a formal federal prosecutor to conduct the investigation.

It was a big investigation and a rigorous one.

The report was damning.

When it finally came out, the Ethics Committee report said the committee found substantial and credible evidence.

That Senator John Ensign broke federal laws.

That Senator John Ensign conspired to violate lobbying laws by arranging those lobbying jobs for Doug Hampton.

That he lied about that mysterious $96,000 payment from his own parents.

That he obstructed justice by deleting emails after he had been formally told and instructed that he had to retain that kind of information.

The Senate Ethics Committee almost never does this, but they recommended to the Department of Justice that John Ensign be prosecuted for those alleged crimes.

And the Justice Department decided not to.

They decided instead they were going to prosecute Doug Hampton.

John Ensign arranged those lobbying jobs for Doug Hampton.

When honestly, it was illegal for him to be lobbying.

As a one-year cooling off period, they were violating it.

John Ensign arranged the jobs.

And you know what, the person who Doug Hampton lobbied once he had those lobbying jobs.

Was John Ensign.

He set him up in these lobbying jobs so he could be lobbied by them.

And John Ensign took action that Doug Hampton lobbied for him to take in those meetings.

All at the time when it was illegal.

All at that time when John Ensign had set up the whole thing.

But Doug Hampton is the one who got prosecuted.

He ended up pleading guilty and getting a year's probation.

Criminal record.

He got a year's probation.

He got a criminal record.

John Ensign got out.

He quit the Senate rather than have to testify to the Ethics Committee under oath.

He's now a veterinarian.

Crew.

The good government group that sued for access to the Department of Justice files in this case.

Sums up their opinion about this story as such.

This case, more than any other public corruption investigation we've seen, is just so troubling.

If you're powerful, it makes it look as if you can get away with anything.

How did all of this happen and Doug Hampton is the only guy who got prosecuted?

And John Ensign is now giving cat vaccinations in Vegas.

How is that possible?

Joining us now for the interview is Doug Hampton, former friend and staffer for former Senator John Ensign of Nevada.

Mr. Hampton, thank you for being here.

You're welcome.

That was a very long introduction. I'm sure there were parts of it that I misstated.

Is there anything I should correct here?

No, I think you were fairly spot on there.

I I did contact Rick to let him know.

That there was some validity to the letter that I sent Megan.

They really misconstrue that, you know, she had Kelly's court.

Prior to the letter being sent, my attorney and the first group of Ensign attorneys had met.

Mhm.

And decided that, you know, at the end of the day, if you bring any charges against the Senator, there's a statute of limitations.

So, truth of the matter is, we're okay.

Those discussions had already happened by the time you sent that letter.

Correct.

The reason I sent the letter was to let you know I don't think it's okay.

Just because you think there's a law, a statute of limitations, just because you think there's nothing that I can in fact do against what he's done.

Doesn't mean that I'm okay with the story and I'm okay with what happened or the way that it happened.

You wanted it to be known what had happened.

The truth is important.

I think the truth is critical.

Why, why would we want to make decisions based on lies?

Why would we want people running our country who are liars?

Was part of your decision there because he was running for president?

You know, it's funny you brought it up. The biggest reason that I ultimately approached him with a legal team.

Was I, number one, it was it became unbearable to live with what had happened and what he had done and what he had orchestrated and Mike Slanker and others and Tom Coburn.

But he went to Iowa.

So in my mind.

This man thinks this is all over with, this is all done. I'm going to go on with my life.

I'm going to go on with the possibly the president.

Yeah, I thought that.

He thought he'd buried it.

He had buried it. Only a person that had buried it could go off and do what he did.

When the Senate, when people who are in the Senate talk about the Senate, they talk about it as a club.

And they mean it in a positive way.

They talk about the collegiality and what a great body it is to work.

In your case, the clubbiness of the Senate seems more sinister.

Yes.

When you went to Tom Coburn, what were you hoping to get from him?

What did you what did you expect?

The truth of the matter is.

It's much like why John Lopez, Chief of Staff of Ensign.

Didn't go to Senate Ethics when I started calling on him.

At the time, I realized that I don't know who to call on for help.

I don't really genuinely think that Senate Ethics is going to do anything.

I need someone that has the kind of power and sits in the same seat as John.

That has the wherewithal to approach him and say, you just can't get away with this.

You thought that Senator Ensign would listen to Tom Coburn and that Tom Coburn was strong enough, powerful enough.

Absolutely.

As did Doug Coe, as did everyone that I had consulted.

They also believed that Tom had the character, had the fortitude to address a very difficult issue.

And tell Ensign that if you don't handle the thing properly, I'll go to Mitch and I'll make sure that things get handled correctly.

Doug Hampton is our guest.

We're going to take a quick break if you don't mind.

And come back.

I should I should note at this point in the interview though that we did reach out to former Senator John Ensign today.

We reached out to him through his veterinary office in Las Vegas.

His staff told us that Mr. Ensign was unavailable and would not be even receiving any messages at this time.

But we tried.

And Senator Ensign, if you're out there and you're watching, I have a feeling that you are.

We'd love to talk to you about this too.

But we'll have more with Doug Hampton when we come back.

Stay with us.