While everyone's been running around writing about former congresstickler Eric Massa, Eric Lichtblau and Eric Lipton of the New York Times spent some time digging further into a congressional sex scandal that actually involved some kind of corruption.

Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.

Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, suggested that a Las Vegas development firm hire the husband, Douglas Hampton, after it had sought the senator’s help on several energy projects in 2008, according to e-mail messages and interviews with company executives.

Investigators are looking at a number of issues including whether Ensign aided Hampton in circumventing the one-year lobbying ban for staffers-turned-lobbyists. Considering that the F.B.I. is involved in the investigation, it is unlikely that the Senate Ethics Committee will rule on ethics violations against Ensign before the criminal investigation is complete.

On a related aside: I'm with Matt Yglesias here. If you're a journalist covering Congress, particularly ethical malfeasance in Congress, why not spend some time covering scandals like Ensign's or Charlie Rangel or the PMA Group (and why the Ethics Committee spiked the investigation)? Do we really need more information on tickle-parties and Eric Massa's deranged sense of self-worth?

Since Wednesday, when the sex scandal engulfing Sen. John Ensign morphed into a public expense scandal, we've learned quite a few new details. Ensign was not blackmailed by Douglas Hampton. Cynthia Hampton's salary at Ensign's campaign doubled during the time of their affair. Ensign helped get jobs for Douglas Hampton and his son after they left Ensign's Senate office and the NRSC, respectively.

What we still don't know is whether Douglas Hampton was handsomely paid with taxpayer money when he left Ensign's Senate office and whether this could constitute as hush money. There are beginning to be calls for a Senate Ethics Committee investigation with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asking for the committee to investigate and require disclosure from Ensign. This is just such an awesome idea and here's why:

Back in 2007, around the time that Ensign was pursuing his close friend's wife, Ensign was leading a crusade to derail a bill that would require electronic filing of Senate campaign finance reports. (Yes, this bill, the one Sunlight has been advocating for since 2006.) How was Ensign trying to derail the bill? By offering an amendment that would require any group filing an ethics complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against a senator to disclose all of their donors (pretty much any lawyer will tell you that this is unconstitutional). This would, in effect, stymie the open process by which the Senate Ethics Committee accepts complaints and would likely stop the committee from pursuing investigations. The Senate Ethics Committee is currently far more active than the House Ethics Committee, which does not accept outside complaints.

(Currently, Sen. Pat Roberts is trying to block the same electronic filing bill with Ensign's anti-investigation amendment. If you want to get rid of this Ensign protecting amendment, you can help out here.)

Now, I don't know if Sen. Ensign was trying to make the ethics process difficult to protect his own hide, but give a listen to how important he takes this issue. He even states that ethics complaints could be written on a bar napkin. I'd gander that writing on bar napkins is something that Ensign is more used to than the Senate Ethics Committee.

Yesterday, Sen. John Ensign admitted to an affair with a campaign staffer who was also the wife of Ensign's administrative assistant. The couple ensnared in this torrid love triangle is Douglas Hampton, the administrative assistant, and Cynthia Hampton, an employee of Ensign's 2008 campaign and his Battle Born PAC. We know that Ensign revealed the affair because Douglas Hampton essentially blackmailed the senator. But, were the Hamptons receiving excessive pay from Ensign during the affair period? Politico looked at the official office payments to Douglas Hampton and found some numbers that look a bit... odd:

Douglas Hampton was paid about $101,000 in 2008 and $144,000 in 2007 as Ensign’s administrative assistant. But a financial disclosure form he filed in 2007 and 2008 – required for senior congressional staffers - showed only checking and savings account worth a maximum $30,000 combined.

A review of public records shows that the Hamptons in 2006 took out a $1.2 million mortgage on their Las Vegas home, at an interest rate of 8 percent.

Now, you might immediately think that $144,000 for an administrative assistant is an absurd amount, but administrative assistant is often synonymous with chief of staff on the Hill. However, if you look to the reporting period of 4/1/2008 to 5/1/08:

Hampton was paid approximately $20,000 over this one month period. At the same time, Ensign hired a chief of staff, John Lopez, ostensibly to replace Hampton. If we are to assume that Hampton's annual salary is around $144,000 -- the cap on staffer salaries is around $160,000 -- then the $20,000 for one month ($240,000 in a year) would be far higher than his normal rate of pay. Over the four months of 2008 Hampton received $101,000, far more than his rate of pay for all of 2007.

There are a few points to be made here:

1) Staff salary reporting is often not aligned with the dates shown. If you look at Legistorm, you will see dates aligned with amounts. This is often not accurate, or includes bonuses with attribution.

2) Hampton could have collected his vacation pay, sick leave and a bonus at his termination, which would make his salary appear inflated.

3) Hampton could have stayed on to train Lopez in his new job. This would explain the overlap of two employees holding the same job.

(More: While writing this post, Politico released another report showing that the son of Douglas and Cynthia Hampton was on the payroll of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) while Ensign headed the organization. Also, this post about whether the Hamptons were pushed to extort Ensign due to a subprime mortgage on their house is worth a look too.)

Since these questions are integral to whether Hampton was received extra pay while Ensign was sleeping with his wife, there are important disclosure problems that need to be addressed. They are:

• The Senate does not disclose their office expenditures online in any format at all. The House is planning on disclosing online in August. The Senate has no plans.
• We could use better staff salary expenditure information so that the pay doesn't look so confusing. Sorry Hill staffers, I know you hate it, but you work for the government.
• Why is it that Senate campaigns do not disclose expenditures? Yet another failure due to the lack of electronic filing in the Senate. Due to the lack of electronic filing we can't -- easily -- find the precise amounts paid to Cynthia Hampton through Ensign's campaign committee, only his PAC.