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Mark Wilson/Getty Images Senator John Ensign of Nevada at a hearing in November 2009.

The Senate Ethics Committee announced Tuesday that it has named a special counsel to help determine whether to bring formal charges against Senator John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who has been accused of using his political influence to help cover up an affair he had with the wife of a former top aide.

Senator John Ensign may have violated ethics laws by helping an aide after having an affair with his wife.

Carol Elder Brown, a former Justice Department prosecutor and an experienced criminal defense lawyer, was appointed to the unusual role, according to a statement released by the committee’s chairwoman, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia. She will help with what the statement said is being called a “preliminary inquiry,” which follows an investigation by staff members that has already taken about a year.

Mr. Ensign has already been cleared by investigators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission, both of which investigated the circumstances surrounding the departure of Doug Hampton, Mr. Ensign’s former aide and close friend,  from his job on Capitol Hill in 2008. Mr. Hampton discovered in 2007 that his wife, Cindy, and Mr. Ensign were having an affair, and Mr. Ensign’s parents in 2009 made a $96,000 payment to Mr. Hampton’s family. Mr. Ensign called this a gift, while Mr. Hampton said it was a severance payment, which could be potentially illegal.

Mr. Ensign also helped Mr. Hampton find a new job as a lobbyist for two Nevada companies.  In violation of a one-year lobbying ban, Mr. Hampton used these assignments to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office.

Senate investigators have been examining what Mr. Ensign knew about Mr. Hampton’s lobbying work and also at the details of the $96,000 payment, among other matters.

“The purpose of a preliminary inquiry is to determine whether there is substantial credible evidence that a violation within the committee’s jurisdiction has occurred,” the committee statement said. “The possible responses after a preliminary inquiry are dismissal of the allegations, a letter of admonition, or, for more serious violations, an adjudicatory review. An adjudicatory review generally involves more formal proceedings, including notice to the Senator of the nature of the possible violations, a description of the evidence of such violations, and the right to a hearing before the committee recommends disciplinary or other action.”

Mr. Ensign, who faces re-election in 2012, has gradually been working to rebuild his standing in Nevada and in the Senate.

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Representative Maxine Waters, who has been under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegations that she helped steer government money to a bank in which her husband owned shares, is asking for an investigation into the committee that has been investigating her.

On Tuesday, Ms. Waters, a California Democrat, said she would introduce a resolution calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to appoint a bipartisan task force to investigate the ethics panel’s decision last month to place two of its lawyers on paid administrative leave. On Nov. 19, the day the committee announced it was delaying Ms. Waters’s trial, it also placed Cindy Morgan Kim, the committee’s deputy chief counsel who was leading the investigation, and Stacy Sovereign, a committee lawyer, on indefinite leave for reported problems with their handling of the case against Ms. Waters.

The resolution warns that the delay in Ms. Waters’s trial violates her “due process rights and the rules of the committee,” and says that the committee’s handling of the situation has subjected it to “public ridicule” and served to “unjustly impugn the integrity” of Ms. Waters.

Ms. Waters has consistently denied any wrongdoing and used the delays in her hearing to go on the offensive, questioning the ethics process.

“Whereas all of these actions have subjected the committee to public ridicule, produced contempt for the ethics process, created the public perception that the committee’s purpose was to unjustly impugn the integrity of a member of the House, and weakened the ability of the committee to properly conduct its investigative duties, all of which has brought discredit to the House,” reads one clause in her resolution.

After the resolution is introduced, the House has two days in which to pick it up, and members would vote at the end of the debate as to whether or not they want Ms. Pelosi to appoint an investigative task force, which would need to release its findings before the current Congress ends.

Ms. Waters’s office deliberately mirrored its resolution after a similar one introduced by Ms. Pelosi, then the House minority leader, in 2005, which called for an investigation into a shake-up of the committee’s staff after the panel rebuked Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, who was then the House majority leader.

The panel originally referred Ms. Waters’s case back to the investigative subcommittee after a new exchange of e-mails surfaced between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which she serves. But the disclosure earlier this month that the House ethics committee had suspended two of its lawyers prompted Ms. Waters to further question the ethics process and introduce Tuesday’s resolution.

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Another big break for Sen. John Ensign, after federal prosecutors announced Wednesday the Nevada Republican would not face charges related to payments he made following his extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer. “The Department of Justice has informed us that Senator Ensign is no longer a target of its investigation and that it has [...]

The House ethics committee placed two of its attorneys on paid administrative leave last month for reported problems with their handling of the committee’s investigation of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.

Cindy Morgan Kim, the committee’s deputy chief counsel who was leading the probe against Ms. Waters, and Stacy Sovereign, a committee attorney assisting on the case, were placed on leave on Nov. 19, the same day that the committee announced it was delaying Ms. Waters’s trial, which was originally set to begin Monday.

Politico first broke news of the indefinite leave, and the ethics committee would not comment on the reason for the paid suspension.

Ms. Waters, who has consistently denied any wrong doing, was angered by the initial delay. On Monday, during a last-minute press conference outside the room in the Longworth House Office Building where her trial was set to begin, she called on the committee to “schedule my hearing before the end of the session or tell me, my constituents and the American public the real reason for this delay.”

And Wednesday’s news, she said in a statement, further vindicated her belief that “Something has gone wrong in the ethics process.”

“Although the committee itself has neither informed me directly, nor commented publicly, news reports have revealed that the attorneys leading the committee’s efforts to build a case against me have been removed from the case,” her statement said. “It seems their conduct was so egregious, that the committee’s chief counsel wanted them fired.”

Though the reason for the leave has not yet been revealed, Ms. Waters offered up a litany of questions she hopes to have answered.

“Did the committee’s attorneys withhold exculpatory evidence?” her statement asked. “Leak documents or speak to the press without authorization? Engage in partisan activity? Mislead members of Congress? Was the disciplinary action justified? What impact does this have on my case?”

Her case was originally referred back to the investigative subcommittee after a new exchange of e-mail messages surfaced. The messages are between Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, Mikael Moore, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves.

Ms. Waters ended her statement by calling on the committee to “reveal immediately the circumstances that prompted its action.”

“We don’t know the specifics, but we know that the integrity of the committee and its investigative process have been compromised,” Ms. Waters said in her written statement. “The longer the committee withholds the details of its actions, the more the public’s confidence in the House ethics process is eroded.”

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Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) wants her public ethics trial held before the end of the year, the Hill reports. At a press conference Monday held outside the committee room where the trial was supposed to have begun that morning, the California Democrat told reporters, “I am here because I am disappointed that the committee has [...]

On the day after the House Ethics Committee recommended a censure for Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), the committee announced Friday that it will not hold the trial of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Nov. 29, as scheduled. Instead, committee chairs Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) said they have decided to send Waters’ case [...]