Investigation Shows Ensign Appealed to Company

By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON — Senator John Ensign sought financial backing for a troubled Nevada energy company in 2008, and at the same time he urged the company to hire his mistress’s husband, according to people involved in the matter.

At the request of the company, P2SA Equity, Mr. Ensign had two senior aides contact one of the nation’s largest oil pipeline businesses, Kinder Morgan, about forming a partnership, two executives associated with the project said.

Mr. Ensign’s dealings with P2SA are at the center of a federal criminal inquiry into his efforts to line up lobbying work for Doug Hampton, a former top aide whose wife had an affair with the senator.

Investigators appear to be looking into whether Mr. Ensign sought to ingratiate himself with P2SA so that he could ease Mr. Hampton out of his office in Washington. Former Capitol Hill staff members like Mr. Hampton are barred from lobbying for a year after leaving their jobs, and if Mr. Ensign knowingly helped him evade that restriction, he could face ethics or criminal charges.

While some of Mr. Ensign’s interactions with P2SA were first reported last month, the extent of them was not clear. The senator’s office said then that he had not provided any assistance to the company. But subsequent interviews showed that his most senior Senate aides intervened in an effort to prevent the Las Vegas business from going under, a fact that Mr. Ensign no longer disputes.

“Senator Ensign acted appropriately by contacting the company,” Mr. Ensign’s office said in a statement this week. The office explained its earlier denial that the senator had helped the company by saying that it had meant he had not intervened in Washington to help the firm.
P2SA was one of a half-dozen companies that Mr. Ensign appealed to on Mr. Hampton’s behalf, The New York Times has reported. While the former aide never got work with P2SA, the interaction of Mr. Ensign and his staff with the company appears unusual, interviews with executives at the firm and a review of their e-mail messages showed.

Mr. Ensign asked about hiring Mr. Hampton in May 2008, during a breakfast meeting in Las Vegas with top executives at P2SA, and a related company, BioDiesel of Las Vegas. At the meeting, Mr. Ensign also asked the executives whether they would attend a campaign fund-raising event, recalled Bob Andrews, one of the executives.

The executives had their own request: they needed money to complete construction of a Las Vegas processing plant that would convert used cooking oil from casino hotels into vehicle fuel. The company officials asked the senator to reach out to executives at Kinder Morgan, which already had a large operation in Las Vegas, about a partnership, executives associated with the project said.

Two senior Ensign aides — John Lopez, then his chief of staff, and Brooke Allmon, then his director of Nevada legislative affairs — followed up by calling Kinder Morgan executives, according to participants in the calls. Larry S. Pierce, a spokesman for Kinder Morgan, confirmed that a representative from Mr. Ensign’s office called the company.

“Is there anything that Kinder Morgan can do to foster a better relationship with BioDiesel of Las Vegas?” one Kinder Morgan executive, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the investigation, recalled being asked. Negotiations between the companies — which previously had informal talks about an alliance — intensified after Mr. Ensign’s staff intervened, a Kinder Morgan executive said.

Meanwhile, Greg Paulk, a top executive at P2SA and at BioDiesel, contributed $10,000 to the Senate Majority Fund, a political action committee Mr. Ensign is affiliated with, records showed.

Mr. Hampton, who was meeting with BioDiesel executives in the summer of 2008, boasted that if they hired him, he could provide unparalleled access to Mr. Ensign, a company official said. “I am the one person who when I call, John Ensign will answer,” Mr. Hampton told the official.

Ms. Allmon, the Ensign aide, also pressed the company to hire Mr. Hampton, the official said. “If you want John Ensign to work with you, you have got to hire Doug Hampton,” the executive recalled her saying in a meeting in Las Vegas.

A lawyer for Ms. Allmon said in a statement that she had never “made any direct or implied statement that any person, company or entity was required to hire Doug Hampton,” but that she had acknowledged meeting with BioDiesel officials. Neither she nor Mr. Lopez now works for Mr. Ensign.

Kinder Morgan decided not to form a partnership with P2SA or BioDiesel of Las Vegas, after concluding it did not make financial sense, Mr. Pierce said. Mr. Hampton was not given a lobbying contract by the company.

Federal officials are also examining Mr. Ensign’s dealings with several small debit card companies in his role as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008. Subpoenas have been sent to current and former executives at three Las Vegas payment-processing and software companies, whom Mr. Ensign had asked to consider becoming “Majority Makers” by donating at least $28,500.

Derek LaFavor, then chief executive of a Las Vegas firm, Selling Source, said that Mr. Ensign had urged him to join the “Majority Makers” club at a meeting early that year. (He declined.) He said that federal investigators had asked him whether Mr. Ensign had mentioned Mr. Hampton or solicited work for him; he said that the senator had not.

James D. Hammer, president of PaycardUSA, another Las Vegas company, helped organize the meeting with Mr. Ensign and made a $28,500 donation. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment. KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, has reported that PayCard, and a third company, eCommLink, have also received subpoenas.
 
Mr. Hampton, in an interview last month, said that with Mr. Ensign’s assistance, he met with eCommLink executives to discuss serving as a lobbyist for them, offering to use contacts in Mr. Ensign’s office to pursue business for the company with the Treasury Department.

Officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington — which Mr. Ensign no longer leads — have separately confirmed that they have received a subpoena for documents. Officials there and in Mr. Ensign’s office would not comment when asked what investigators had questioned them about.

Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting.

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