Our Washington Bureau reporters, Emily Belz and Lee Pitts, with help from Jamie Dean down in Charlotte, report on the secretive Capitol Hill Bible study whose membership includes both Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who have something else in common—recent admissions of adultery:

The governor said at his press conference Wednesday that he was working with the “C Street group,” a Bible study of Christian politicians that has been something of an accountability group. Ensign, too, who announced his own extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer last week, had reportedly sought support from the group. While Sanford was more highly regarded as a potential 2012 presidential candidate, Ensign was also on the short list of candidates. Neither has much of a chance at national office now, especially since both espoused traditional family values.

According to some reports, several of the C Street housemates knew about both Ensign and Sanford’s affairs months before the news broke, and had been working with the two to resolve their extramarital relationships.

You can read all of this report here. Also, we posted earlier this morning an analysis by Jamie on the political situation in South Carolina, a long-time Republican stronghold that is quickly losing ground to Democrats.