Why Sen. Ensign should be worried about possible indictment

LasVegas Sun

Sunday, April 4, 2010 | 2 a.m.

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.

That’s what I am told by a reliable source familiar with the
deliberations occurring inside the Justice Department as federal
authorities in Washington try to do with Ensign what they could not do
with former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens: Get their man. Or, because they had
Stevens and then lost him because of misconduct, Justice wants to make
sure if it goes to the next step with Ensign, the charges stick.

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.

The question is how Justice might, ahem, structure a deal with Ensign.
It is clear from observers — and from those who know the thinking inside
the Justice Department — that the Stevens debacle has cast a shadow over
the Ensign case.

The department is being very deliberate in assembling a case against
Ensign. But Justice has a mountain of documents and e-mails that,
combined with the senator’s own admissions or statements in e-mails,
would seem to amount to a formidable case. And last week’s New York
Times story, showing how Ensign’s contacts with a local company (similar
to several other interactions), show how far the senator was willing to
go to get Hampton work, mostly while he was employed by ex-Ensign aides
who had formed a lobbying/consulting firm. The structure, so to speak,
is becoming more transparent all the time.

This drip-drip-drip of revelation seems to have left Ensign unfazed,
like a man who is slowly drowning but believes he can rise above it —
or, perhaps, deludes himself into thinking he can walk on water. But as
Republicans here and in Washington play the pathetic see-no-evil,
hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil game vis-a-vis Ensign, it is becoming more
obvious that their craven behavior could be self-defeating.

If Ensign gets indicted, he will become a national and state nightmare
for the GOP. National Democrats will brandish him as a symbol of
corruption (they may anyhow) and local Democrats will wrap the junior
senator around the GOP Senate nominee’s neck, especially because Sue
Lowden and Danny Tarkanian foolishly have said they would welcome his
support. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid directly go after his pal to boost his sagging fortunes. I
can hear it now: “Sorry, John. But now you know how Doug Hampton feels —
how it feels to be screwed over by your best friend.”

Why are the national and state Republicans mute? Cowardice, perhaps? Or
is it, as NBC political guru Chuck Todd tweeted Friday, repeating
something he previously said on “Face to Face” a couple of weeks ago:
“NV/DC GOPers desperate to wait for Gov. Gibbons to be out of office
before pushing Ensign out but can they really (http://nyti.ms/91kElt)?”

The Web link in Todd’s tweet is to last week’s Times story, emphasizing
the point that if the Republicans wait too long, their silence could be
very costly. And if Ensign gets indicted and no prominent Republican has
called for him to resign, there’s no way to structure that deal to the
GOP’s benefit.
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