Part of her "career path" says former boss

Excerpt from Google News via AP, Dec. 8:

Baucus girlfriend eyed US attorney post for years

Montana Sen. Max Baucus' live-in girlfriend had eyed the state's U.S. attorney post for years before he nominated her for the job, her former colleagues said.

In Montana, Yellowstone County Attorney Dennis Paxinos described Hanes as an accomplished criminal prosecutor. Being named U.S. attorney "was the career path she was working on" since at least 2002, said Paxinos, a Republican and Hanes' former boss.

That year Hanes left her deputy county attorney job to work on Baucus' re-election campaign. The move into politics was based on the assumption that it could lead to the federal prosecutor's job, according to Paxinos.

Local Media query on Affair quelched the Nomination

Montana blogger Jodi Rave of Buffalo's Fire, is a former journalist for the Missoulian. She has just released this information on her blog:

My entry into this story begain around February 2009 when a source called me with information about the beyond-professional relationship between Baucus and Hanes. I made a few phone calls to follow up on the lead. After I had sufficient information, I called Kaiser Barrett, the spokesman for Baucus. I had two questions. First, would Baucus confirm his romantic relationship with Hanes? Second. Did the senator see a conflict of interest in nominating his girlfriend as U.S. attorney? The story stretched out for weeks before I finally placed a final phone call to Barrett around March 11, 2009. I said we’re running the story in the next day’s paper. He then sent out a statement via e-mail saying Hanes was NOT a candidate for U.S. attorney. This was around the same time she apparently withdrew her name, according to recent press reports. I quit working at the paper in May... Amazingly, the Baucus story is breaking more than nine months later. I’d be surprised if it went away any time soon.

Rave goes on to report on her meeting with the former husband of Melodee Hanes. Continuing:

A source tipped me off about the Baucus and Hanes relationship. I tracked down Hanes’ husband, Thomas Bennett, a doctor who lives in Billings, Mont. Bennett and I talked on the phone several times. He said his wife was having an affair with Baucus. He was upset because so many people knew about the affair before him. Bennett and Hanes divorced in December 2008. In February 2009, I arranged a meeting with Bennett in Missoula in which he showed me an e-mail his wife sent to the senator. Hanes called Baucus her ”furnace.”

In a media availability late last Friday, Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf in announcing the affair, said of his boss, "Senator Baucus is currently in a mature and happy relationship with Melodee Hanes."