TN GOP Rep Slept With 2 Patients, 3 Coworkers

For a pro-life guy, Scott DesJarlais sure likes abortions. The GOP congressman encouraged his ex-wife to get two abortions before their marriage, he admitted during a 2001 divorce proceeding, according to a transcript obtained yesterday by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. What's more, DesJarlais admits to having sexual relationships with two patients, three coworkers, and a drug representative while he was chief of staff at Grandview Medical Center. He prescribed one of those lovers pain meds throughout the affair, but insisted there was "nothing wrong" with those prescriptions.

An earlier report that DesJarlais had urged one of those patients to have an abortion failed to derail his re-election bid, and GOP leaders aren't commenting on the new revelations, Roll Call reports. In court, DesJarlais said he'd recorded the abortion phone call as part of a plot hatched with his wife to get the mistress to admit she wasn't really pregnant. But that contradicts a message his campaign posted on Facebook, in which he said he "was recorded unknowingly and without my consent."