SpyTalk

The panel's jurisdiction includes "studying or investigating the effectiveness of present national security methods [and] the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of all agencies and departments of the government involved in the control and management of energy shortages

The Nevada Republican reportedly decided to confess publicly to the affair Tuesday after the husband of the woman he was having an affair with demanded money, according to media reports emerging over the past 24 hours.

Ensign disclosed the affair Tuesday during a press conference in his home state as "the worst thing I have ever done in my life."

A call to Ensign's Senate office was not answered. A recorded message said its "voicemail box is full. Goodbye."

During 2005-2006, Ensign also served on the Armed Services Committee, with seats on panels overseeing strategic forces: emerging threats and capabilities; and readiness and management support.

Ensign is  the  ranking Republican on the Homeland panel's subcommittee on state, local and private sector preparedness and integration.

His position left Ensign vulnerable to larger forces, says Michelle Van Cleave, chief of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), in the George W. Bush administration.

"There is no question that foreign intelligence services target Congress for collection and influence operations," Van Cleave said in a brief interview.

"In politics and the public eye, human weaknesses can become political liabilities. To foreign intelligence officers, those same weaknesses can be turned into opportunities."

But Harry B. "Skip" Brandon, a former head of FBI counterintelligence, says foreign intelligence services would probably be "leery" of taking advantage of an official's indiscretion that they have learned about, instead of one that they can control.

"It's obvious that any time an elected official is caught in something untoward they're vulnerable,"  Brandon said in a telephone interview. "But in reality, a foreign intelligence service is probably leery of something like this unless they can set it up and control it, like in a sting."

"Lord knows they try to do that (when members of Congress) are on junkets and all over the Hill," continued Brandon, deputy assistant FBI director for counterintelligence when he retired in 1995.  "But their real vulnerability comes from people trying to extort money from them, like in this case, reportedly, or to get them to vote a certain way."

More than foreign intelligence services, he said, "it's lobbyists who love to hear about something like Ensign's affair."    

Ensign actually lessened his vulnerability to blackmail by surfacing the affair, observers say. The greatest danger comes when officials try to keep an affair or embarrassing incident secret. This is when a hostile spy service  has the greatest leverage, observers said.  

According to news reports, Ensign decided to go public with an affair he had with the wife of a former aide after her husband tried to blackmail him with the secret for money.

"Political insiders in Nevada and in the Senate said that Ensign decided to acknowledge the affair publicly after the husband of the woman he had been seeing asked him for a substantial sum of money," Politico reported.

Fox News, quoting two anonymous Republican sources, called the demand from the aide as "extortion."