Sen. Thad Cochran marries longtime aide, landlady

Sen. Thad Cochran married longtime aide Kay Webber on Saturday — (Image credit: Twitter/@sunherald)

On Monday, Sen. Thad Cochran's office announced, in one terse sentence, that the 77-year-old Mississippi Republican had married longtime aide Kay Webber at a private ceremony on Saturday. The marriage comes five months after the death of Cochran's wife and a year after Cochran's re-election campaign denied rumors that the senator and his executive assistant were having an affair, during a heated GOP primary battle.

Webber "is a member of the staff and a trusted aide, and any other suggestion is silly gossip," spokesman Jordan Russell told Jackson, Mississippi's The Clarion-Ledger at the time. She is also Cochran's landlady, renting him the basement of her $1.6 million Washington townhouse, and accompanied him on at least 30 overseas trips between 2002 and 2014, for no apparent official reason, with her expenses costing taxpayers at least $150,000, The Clarion-Ledger reported.

Webber, 76, started working in Cochran's office in 1981, and earns about $140,000 to help arrange travel and constituent events, The Washington Post reports. A Cochran spokesman said Webber will continue working at her husband's office.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.