ralston, political analyst here, host of face to face and reported extensively on this ensign case. he s even mentioned now, john, on page 42 of the report. in any way, shape or form did senate leaders turn a blind eye to the wrongdoing? well, i think to some extent there is a lot of clubbiness inside the club of 100 and certainly i think that it is very uncomfortable for them to go after one of their own. it is interesting that john ensign s no longer there. so they can say all kinds of things about him, but, remember, he essentially had been ostracized by the republican leadership. they knew how bad this was. he was demoted from his leadership position right after this broke almost two years ago. and mitch mcconnell and others have been very, very tepid in their public statements about john ensign. i think they sensed how bad this really was. and just all of the detail we saw in that report confirmed what everyone had already known.
confirming the fact that mitchell will be resigning and the president will be putting out a statement on that subject later. no reason as to why. we don t know why. but here s what we do know. george mitchell was the majority leader, democrat from maine, a united states senator, a job all about reconciling opposing sides. he was an investigator into baseball steroid scandal and explosive report that landed in congress that implicated some major figures, heros in the sports world. he was a peacemaker in northern ireland, bringing that intractable conference between protestants and catholics to a close there. the israeli settlement issue in the west bank after president obama, one of the first individuals that president obama appointed to his foreign policy team was george mitchell, to tack the thorniest foreign policy issue of all that is peace in the middle east, it appears that the any progress that had been made was about to be made is really stumbled over last fall s lifting of th
bank. this comes at a very inauspicious time. next week it was just announced that the same gaggle that the king of jordan, king abdullah, is going to be visiting here earlier in the week. on friday, prime minister benjamin netanyahu will be visiting with president obama, having meetings. the biggest event next week is a long await speech that the president is going to be delivering, he s going to be heading over to the state department just west of here to deliver what is being billed in the run-up to this as a me majo address on middle east policy. strange timing here, this announcement by george mitchell, contes contessa. mike viqueira, thank you for staying on top of it. i know if you get more details, you ll come on and share them. for the first time in more than 15 years, the senate ethics committee is asking the justice department to investigate a former senator, a move that could lead to criminal charges. their investigation resulted in a 75-page report laying out explosive
so can you feed them right. find it at your local pet store. i m andrea mitchell. coming up next, drastic considerations under way as the mississippi river keeps rising. people trying to escape the rushing waters. mississippi governor haley barbour joins us. msnbc s rachael maddow on the ensign ethics report is making plenty of people blush. our interview with former prisoner sarah shourd, an update on her fiance and friend still both being held in tehran for espionage. we ll see you back here for andrea mitchell reports. this week the race for 2012 finally made the headlines. ron paul made a big announcement this morning. at this moment, i m officially announcing i am a candidate for president. in the republican primary. time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what i ve
graffiti, crack down on the litterbugs, if we crack down on the people breaking windows, the big crimes will stop too. what i m suggesting is, you know, maybe if the senate leadership was willing to take a stand on the small ethics violations, that maybe the big stuff wouldn t happen. well, that may be true. but if you read this report that is almost 70 page report, it is absolutely devastating in terms of the potential for eight federal crimes to be having been committed. these are not minor crimes, contessa. these are major crimes providing false statements, shredding documents, trying to obstruct justice and, again, the creepiness of this whole affair with his wife s best friend, was also his best friend s wife, that just adds to the salaciousness and makes you a little bit sick to think about it. karen, i got to ask you about the coburn thing. is tom coburn going to face more scrutiny? i think he absolutely will. what has come out certainly in