Senator John Ensign’s parents were prevailed upon to pay big bucks to the family of his mistress. How big? $96,000. Could anything be more humiliating to a US Senator than to have to turn to parents for a payoff of this type and scale? What was Ensign thinking?

On Thursday, Ensign’s attorney said that the senator’s parents gave Doug Hampton, Cynthia Hampton and their two children gifts worth $96,000 in the form of a check. The attorney, Paul Coggins, said that each gift was limited to $12,000 and “complied with tax rules governing gifts.”

The disclosure of the April 2008 payment seemed intended to head off growing questions about whether Ensign violated federal law by failing to report what Doug Hampton called a severance package worth more than $25,000 to his wife Cynthia, who left Ensign’s campaign staff on April 30, 2008.