Senator Coburn’s indecent proposal

Members of Congress who have medical licenses are not answerable to the law. At least, that’s what Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., would have you believe.

In June 2009, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., admitted to having an affair with a married member of his staff lasting approximately nine months. At the time of his announcement, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Ensign admitted the woman’s husband had also been a member of his staff at the time of the affair.

Despite the moral disgrace Ensign committed, no laws punish extramarital affairs, and rightfully so.

However, Ensign later admitted his parents gave $96,000 to his former lover and her family “out of concern for the well-being of family friends.”

Later, rumors surfaced that Ensign attempted to get the husband of his former mistress a job as a lobbyist following the end of their employment under the Senator. But ethics rules prohibit congressional aides from lobbying for one year following the termination of their employment.

Many in the political world see these as payoffs, or bribery. After all, it’s quite uncommon for the parents of your former employer to shell out large sums of money after a scandalous announcement.

Unfortunately for Ensign, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Senate Ethics Committee seem to agree. In December 2009, the Senate Ethics Committee issued subpoenas to several of the Senator’s former aides, following the committee’s announcement to investigate any wrongdoing. This month, the FBI contacted these same aides, as well as Ensign’s former chief of staff.

Most interesting, however, is Coburn’s contribution to the matter.
The former mistress’s husband, Doug Hampton, claims Coburn “urged Ensign to pay the Hamptons millions of dollars,” according to www.politico.com. This would imply Coburn explicitly encouraged Ensign to bribe the family to keep them quiet.

Coburn denies everything Hampton alleges. But, when asked whether he would cooperate with investigations, he made quite an awkward claim.
“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.”

In other words, according to Coburn, he doesn’t have to cooperate with investigations by the FBI because he holds a medical license and is somewhat of a leader in a religious institution.

While laws mandating doctor-patient privilege exist, it seems grotesquely erroneous that they should extend to any conversation had with a doctor, especially when those conversations are not medically relevant.

While we may overlook and understand the moral misjudgments of our leaders, we must not overlook their crimes. Americans, and especially Oklahomans, should only have one feeling toward Coburn: contempt.
Perhaps a federal court will do the right thing and hold him in it.

Trenton is a political science sophomore.