Rep. DesJarlais has no plans to resign

A spokesman said the embattled Republican was reelected "to focus on the important issues facing our nation—not a 14-year-old divorce."

A spokesman for embattled Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) said the congressman has no plans to resign, despite recent revelations surrounding a decade-old divorce that have caused some to wonder whether he could step down from office.

"No, he does not" DesJarlais communications director Robert Jameson told The Hill when asked if he planned to resign.

“Voters sent Congressman DesJarlais back to Washington to focus on the important issues facing our nation – not a 14-year-old divorce," Jameson added.

On Thursday, the Chattanooga Times Free Press published a trial transcript from DesJarlais's 2001 divorce from his wife, in which "DesJarlais had sexual relationships with at least two patients, three coworkers and a drug representative while he was chief of staff at Grandview Medical Center in Jasper, Tenn."

The transcript also reveals that he supported his wife's two abortions and prescribed drugs to one of the patients with whom he had an affair.

And it corroborated aspects of DesJarlais's past affairs that came out earlier this year, which threatened to derail his reelection bid. Democrats attempted to hammer him for October revelations that DesJarlais had pressured a former mistress to get an abortion.

He has run for office as an anti-abortion-rights, social conservative candidate, and received a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee.

But he won reelection with a nearly 12-percentage-point lead on his Democratic challenger. His district, Tennessee's 4th, is heavily Republican, and despite some Democratic outside groups spending funds there in an attempt to drive up DesJarlais's negatives, Democrats were unlikely to prevail from the start.

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