Two of them, Senator John Ensign, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the Senate and the fourth-ranking member in his party's Senate leadership, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, immediate past chair of the Republican Governors Association and U.S. Representative from 1995 to 2001, were considering running for president in 2012. The affairs of Ensign and then-Congressman Chip Pickering, R-Miss., took place while they were living at the C Street Center. Ensign, a Fellowship member and longtime resident of the C Street Center, admitted in June 2009 to an extra-marital affair with Cindy Hampton. Hampton was Ensign's campaign treasurer and the wife of his co-chief of staff, longtime friend and fellow worshipper Doug Hampton. "The Washington Post" reported that the C Street House "pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals" and that residents tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering. An emotional meeting was reportedly held to discuss "forgiveness" between Hampton, the husband of Ensign's mistress, and Senator Tom Coburn. Coburn, with Timothy and David Coe, leaders of the Fellowship, attempted to intervene to end Ensign's affair in February 2008 by meeting with Hampton and convincing Ensign to write a letter to Hampton's wife breaking off the affair. Ensign was chaperoned by Coburn and other members from C Street, where Ensign lives with Coburn, to post the letter. Ensign called Hampton's wife hours later to tell her to ignore the letter and flew out to spend the weekend with her in Nevada. Doug Hampton said he was not directly advised by the Fellowship to cover up Ensign's affair with his wife, but instead to "be cool". After losing his job with Ensign and losing a subsequent lobbying job, Hampton has said that he was in financial distress and reached out to Coburn—a C Street resident—in an effort to reach an agreement with Ensign. Coburn has denied negotiating a deal, but has stated that he "had worked to 'bring two families to a closure of a very painful episode'". Hampton has expressed the belief that his friends at C Street abandoned him by choosing to close ranks around Ensign, and that for them, the episode was "[more] about preserving John [Ensign], preserving the Republican party...preserving C Street" than about doing the right thing. Ensign's efforts to cover up his affair were investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice.