Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has turned over e-mails to federal authorities investigating Sen. John Ensign’s extramarital affair with a campaign aide, the latest sign that the criminal probe into the embattled Nevada Republican is picking up steam. Coburn told POLITICO that he is cooperating with the Justice Department in the investigation of Ensign, and says he’s willing to submit himself to an interview with the FBI or Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which is conducting a parallel investigation into whether Ensign broke Senate rules.
“We’ve given them everything they wanted,” Coburn said, referring to the Justice Department.
Coburn would not reveal what was in the e-mails he is sharing with federal authorities, but a Coburn aide said the Oklahoma Republican turned over more than 1,200 pages of documents to the Justice Department.
But Coburn’s decision to provide potential evidence to the Justice Department is another blow for Ensign, and could help federal investigators build their case against his fellow Republican colleague.
Coburn is not the subject of the probe, which is focusing on Ensign’s efforts to secure lobbying work for his former aide Doug Hampton, whose wife, Cynthia, carried on a nine-month extramarital affair with Ensign that ended in August 2008.
Coburn said he was not subpoenaed, but that he sent the Justice Department his relevant e-mails in response to a recent letter the investigators had sent him. He said “there weren’t many” e-mails, but he wouldn’t approximate the number of records he provided.
“They haven’t asked for an interview — they asked for e-mails, that’s all,” he said. “We got one letter, we complied and fulfilled it.”
At the time of Ensign’s affair, Coburn and the Nevada Republican were roommates, sharing a townhome on Capitol Hill known as the “C Street” house, run by a Christian group.
Coburn would not provide details about what precisely the Justice Department’s Office of Public Integrity was seeking, and a spokesman wouldn’t comment on the investigators’ request because it’s an ongoing investigation. But, Coburn’s spokesman said, the senator provided “more information than was requested.”
Sources familiar with the investigation said that the Justice Department appears to be focusing on the relationship between Hampton and Ensign — and whether the two conspired to break federal lobbying laws.
One of the areas that federal investigators are looking into is a meeting between Hampton's lobbying client, Allegiant Air of Las Vegas, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in March 2009.
Allegiant and its CEO, Maurice Gallagher — who is a big financial backer of Ensign's campaigns — wanted LaHood's help with an issue related to a contract for charter flights for professional sports teams. Ensign called LaHood personally to help arrange the meeting, and then later that same day, he had lunch with Hampton, Gallagher and John Lopez, his former chief of staff, in the Senate Dining Room.
Coburn also met with Hampton and Allegiant officials, according to a report in The New York Times, as did several other GOP senators.
“We didn’t do anything inappropriate,” Coburn said Thursday in an interview in the Capitol.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40163.html#ixzz0uhcmVPr6
