Sandy Hume - Career

Career

Hume broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup by Rep. Bill Paxon against Speaker Newt Gingrich. Another of the plotters, Majority Leader Dick Armey, scuttled the coup when he learned that Paxon, and not he, would replace Gingrich. Armey later disavowed the whole attempt and claimed not to have been involved.

A few months later, in February 1998, Paxon launched an attempt to unseat Armey from his leadership position. Just days later, Sandy Hume killed himself with a gunshot to the head. After Hume's death, Paxon suddenly and inexplicably resigned his seat and never returned to public life. Almost immediately, rumors began flying around Washington that Paxon had been having a homosexual affair with Hume, was his source for the story, and that Armey had threatened to out them. Hence the suicide of Hume and the sudden resignation of Paxton. This theory was common knowledge among many in the D.C. press corps, but it never made it to print in the mainstream media. MSNBC commentator and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough says in his book, Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day, that he was Hume's source and accuses Armey of spreading the rumors to smear Paxton.