The END is nigh for Ensign: Why Sen. Ensign should be worried about possible indictment

[malaise]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/04/why-sen-ensign-should-be-worried-about-possible-in/
<snip>
In the federal penal code, it is known as “structuring.”

And it is a word Sen. John Ensign should remember because it is very likely to be on any indictment with his name on it.

Structuring is a broad term that refers to the crime of creating financial transactions to evade reporting requirements — for example, a $96,000 payment to your mistress laundered through a trust controlled by your parents and calling it a “gift” instead of what it obviously was: a severance payment that had to be reported.

That the feds are looking at structuring as a possible crime will not surprise many old hands who have watched the sordid Ensign saga play out, morphing from a fairly grotesque he-slept-with-his-best-friend’s-wife-who-was-also-his-wife’s-best-friend story to a fantastically creepy tale of a senator trying to keep the cuckolded husband quiet by any means necessary, including, perhaps, structuring transactions with businesses in exchange for campaign contributions.

Maybe Ensign won’t be indicted. Maybe he will resign in exchange for not being indicted. Maybe he will serve out his term or even be re-elected. Would that be any more incredible than anything else we have seen?

Two former federal prosecutors in the past two weeks have said there is enough evidence to indict Ensign. “Just based on what the senator has said himself and what Mr. (Doug) Hampton has said … under the federal standard of probable cause, there’s enough to indict the senator now,” ex-prosecutor Stan Hunterton, a well-respected local attorney, said March 19 on “Face to Face.” Then, Thursday on the program, Melanie Sloan, the former federal prosecutor who now heads a D.C. watchdog group that has filed several complaints against Ensign, said, “I completely think” Hunterton is right.

[DCKit]

1. Since when do (R)s get indicted?

Over the past two decades, they've simply resigned and gone into lobbying and the whole thing is forgotten.

Delay and Hastert are just two of many recent examples.

[karynnj]

6. Representative Cunningham

He went to jail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham Ted Stevens indicted, found guilty, but then got off on a technicality.

[DCKit]

8. Thanks for the refresher.

It's good to know that at least one of them is serving time.

[spanone]

2. k&r

[robertpaulsen]

3. K & R! Can't wait to find out!

:kick:

[Submariner]

4. This punk will hang around so Senatorial funds can pay the scumbags legal fees

so his Mommy and Daddy won;t have to...again.

[malaise]

7. Mommy and Daddy are in enough trouble

for the hush money - $96,000

[damntexdem]

5. No, don't worry him and cause him to resign soon.

Wait and let him be indicted, and maybe resign right before the election.

[malaise]

9. Check out the article Rachel just discussed

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/05/deconstructing-senators-facade/

Deconstructing the facade of John Ensign
Revelations on long history of arrogance expose a persona loyal only to John Ensign
<snip>
In interviews with the Las Vegas Sun, more than a dozen friends, associates and Republican allies, some of whom have known Ensign for years, describe him as a politician who has grown narcissistic and reckless — a detached, self-righteous figure with almost no regard for those who helped send him to Washington or keep him there.

Ensign’s actions in the wake of the affair, and the resulting investigations by the Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee have bled into the lives of his once-closest aides, associates and friends, as well as largely innocent bystanders and his family.

The sources, most of whom spoke to the Sun on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations, said what rankles so many in Republican circles is that Ensign seems oblivious to the collateral damage caused by his actions, and unwilling to make the matter disappear by resigning.

Steve Wark, a longtime Nevada Republican operative, said Ensign’s failure to make and maintain relationships has come back to haunt him. “What’s made this more difficult for John Ensign is that when politicians get in trouble, other elected officials come to their aid out of devotion or obligation,” he said.

It is telling that for Ensign, that hasn’t been the case.

“It was always, for the most part, about John Ensign. That is fairly unusual — that lack of involvement and interest in other people’s careers, or in party-building,” Wark added.