JUSTICE

Report: Santorum Alerted Ensign

That mistress was about to go public with affair.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum wouldn’t be a serious contender for president if he didn’t have one scandal under his wing. A Senate ethics report released Thursday said Santorum had alerted his colleague Sen. John Ensign that Ensign’s former mistress was about to go public with the affair that would later bring Ensign down. The report concluded that Ensign’s aide Doug Hampton—the husband of the woman Ensign had the affair with—contacted Megyn Kelly of Fox News to say he wanted a meeting with her, then showed the email to Santorum, who tipped off Ensign. The ethics committee also referred the case to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. Ensign resigned in April and officially left office on May 3 after the ethics committee found him guilty of violating federal law by covering up the sex scandal.