GOP Sen. Tom Coburn reprimanded for role in John Ensign affair
WASHINGTON - The Senate Ethics Committee publicly admonished Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on Friday for improperly meeting with a lobbyist and former aide to Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who resigned from the Senate after having an affair with the aide's wife.
The qualified reprimand was for failing to avoid the ban on having former staff-turned-lobbyists meet with officials. It falls short of a censure or criminal violation. But the committee said it was "improper conduct" for Coburn to meet with Douglas Hampton, the former aide who tried to work as a lobbyist after the affair forced him out of Ensign's office.
The Senate has a one-year prohibition on senior staff seeking to influence their former colleagues, and the ethics committee previously accused Ensign of conspiring to violate the ban by helping to set up clients for Hampton. The rule applies to former officials and was set as a way to shut the revolving door between lobbyists and Capitol Hill.
"Senators are obligated to meet a high standard," the committee wrote in a letter signed by all six members of the panel, which is equally represented by Democrats and Republicans.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/25/150229/gop-sen-tom-coburn-reprimanded.html#storylink=cpy
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