The Hill
The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and a senior staffer for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Friday for their involvement in the scandal that led to former Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) resignation.
Coburn was entangled in helping his good friend and colleague, Ensign, deal with a sordid scandal he had created within his office.
Coburn and Bret Bernhardt — the chief of staff for DeMint — met with Doug Hampton after he resigned from Ensign’s office and took to lobbying Capitol Hill, which was in clear violation of the one-year ban on lobbying for former staff, the committee reported.
Coburn was aware that his meeting with Hampton violated federal law, but the committee opted not to take action beyond the public rebuke because Coburn held only one meeting with Hampton and expressed remorse for holding it.
“While the committee did not find that your conduct constituted actionable violations of criminal law, it determined that you did not meet the aforementioned higher standards expected of a U.S. senator,” the committee wrote in a letter to Coburn on Friday. “In deciding to issue a qualified admonition, the committee took note that it was one meeting that you have since candidly acknowledged was wrong and taken full responsibility for arranging.”
