The closer you look at the John Ensign love triangle, the stranger it becomes. Something just doesn’t feel right about the allegation that the husband of the senator’s love interest — both of whom were staffers for Ensign — was trying to run some sort of extortion hustle, which forced Ensign to go public and admit the affair.
First off, the two couples were reportedly close. Ensign and the husband, Doug Hampton, have been described as like brothers. Second, Doug Hampton was a, if not the, top staffer to Ensign. Third, Cynthia Hampton was treasurer of Ensign’s own campaign, and he turned to her when a longtime GOP treasurer suspected of embezzlement was ousted from Ensign’s leadership PAC. Even the Hampton’s son worked for Ensign at the NRSC for a time.
Maybe all that can be explained away by the bad blood and toxic feelings that an affair would leave behind. Maybe. But as Zack Roth reports, even after the affair, after Cynthia had been reportedly paid a severance to leave Ensign’s campaign, and after Doug left his Senate staff, Doug went to work for a Nevada-based airline whose CEO and his wife are big political contributors to Ensign and for the political consulting firm that represents Ensign. It’s a very tangled web. My gut is there’s more to this story.
