John Ensign plays doctor with staffer, needs a pelvic exam.

Via WaPo:

The wealthy parents of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) gave $96,000 last year to the staffer who was then his mistress and to her family, his attorney said yesterday.

...The gifts roughly coincided with Hampton's departure as treasurer of Ensign's political committees, as well as with the resignation of her husband, Douglas, as Ensign's chief of staff, on May 1, 2008. Ensign has said that the sexual affair with Cynthia Hampton began in December 2007 and continued until the following August.

The money was disbursed in April 2008, in eight checks of $12,000 each, with two checks each for Cynthia Hampton, her husband and their two children, Coggins said.

How bad does this look? Let me count the ways:
He's indisputably an unfaithful husband.

He apparently needs Mummy and Daddy to clean up the mess after he played Brotherhood of the Wandering Pants.

It seems painfully clear they're doing so in such a way as to skirt the IRS.

And...it gets better.

In an interview this week, Douglas Hampton also alleged that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a close friend of Ensign's, urged Ensign to end the affair early last year and suggested financial compensation for the Hampton family.

Coburn's office acknowledged that he counseled Ensign to end the affair but denied suggesting any financial deal.

Yesterday, Coburn told the Roll Call newspaper that he would refuse any attempts to compel him to testify in court or at the Senate ethics committee about his role. Coburn, an obstetrician, claimed a legal privilege against such testimony as his physician and religious adviser.

"I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon," Coburn said. "That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the ethics committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody."

The only thing more awesome than an elected official vowing to obstruct an ethical or criminal investigation is one doing so based on claims of privilege straight out of fantasyland.