Ensign’s former DC group house target of complaint to IRS

A group of clergy members from Ohio is challenging the federal tax status claimed by the C Street Center in Washington, the secretive Christian group house on Capitol Hill that has been home to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and several other leaders linked to sex scandal.

The center, which rents rooms to members of Congress, is “an exclusive club for powerful officials… masquerading as a church,” says a letter from the members of Clergy Voice asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, according to a report this morning in The Washington Post.

Residents reportedly pay below-market rents and share meals and Bible study classes at the row house at 133 C Street SE, in back of the Library of Congress and two blocks from the U.S. Capitol grounds.

The C Street Center also is where Doug Hampton reportedly confronted Ensign early in 2008 and demanded the senator stop pursuing Hampton’s wife. And where Ensign housemate Sen. Tom Coburn, met with Hampton in an attempt to help end the affair. And where South Carolina Gov Mark Sanford, in confessing to having an extramarital affair, said he had visited when he was a member of Congress.

Ensign moved out of the C Street house last year but has not said where he is living now.