Sen. John Ensign's Top Staff Jumping Ship

It seems Sen. John Ensign is having more personnel problems following some bad choices in dealing with two former staffers.

As we all have followed closely, the Nevada Republican had an affair with his campaign treasurer, Cindy Hampton, thereby simultaneously cuckolding his chief of staff, Doug Hampton, resulting in bad feelings all around. There has been a call for an ethics investigation of whether a severance payment of more than $25,000 to Cindy was legal and, unfortunately for the former boss, despite a generous set of family-directed forgive and forget "gifts" totaling $96,000, Doug has been bad mouthing his ex-boss all over town.

Now, Glenn Thrush reports over at Politico that Ensign's no doubt beleaguered press secretary, Salvatore Mazzola, is leaving for a less stressful work environment helping the National Republican Congressional Committee in its attempts to catch up in 2010. Ensign's new Chief of Staff John Lopez also quit recently to weigh "options in the private sector." Both men once reported to Doug Hampton. No word if either of them will get Cindy's generous severance package.