Former senator fathered secret child

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Former Sen. Pete Domenici has disclosed that he fathered a secret child in the 1970s with the 24-year-old daughter of one of his Senate colleagues – a startling revelation for a politician with a reputation as an upstanding family man.

Domenici and Michelle Laxalt sent statements to the Albuquerque Journal that announced the relationship for the first time and identified their son as Nevada attorney Adam Paul Laxalt. They said they decided to go public with their decades-old secret because they believed someone was about to release the information in an attempt to smear Domenici.

“I deeply regret this and am very sorry for my behavior,” Domenici, 80, said in his statement.

The Journal reported on the relationship in an article published Wednesday.

Domenici, a Republican, was the longest-serving senator in New Mexico history when he retired in 2008 after six terms.

Domenici voted for the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton in 1998 after his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but his floor statement focused on the fact that Clinton had lied under oath, noting that the trial “has never been about the President’s private sex acts, as tawdry as they have been.”

But in the same speech, he cited the value of “truthfulness” and how it’s the first pillar of good character.

Reached at his home in Washington on Wednesday, Domenici said he had nothing more to say. Domenici and his wife have been married more than 50 years and have eight children.