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Vitter quietly returns to Capitol Hill

Senator’s wife said she has forgiven husband’s role with escort service

Emerging from a week of seclusion and scandal linking him to a Washington escort service, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., returned to his duties in on Capitol Hill Washington, Tuesday, sitting on a hearing of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on Air Operations.

WASHINGTON - Louisiana Sen. David Vitter returned to the Capitol Tuesday, apologizing privately to GOP colleagues but refusing to take reporters’ questions about a sex scandal that sent him into seclusion for a week.

The first-term Republican said he wanted to resume his normal Senate schedule, but that proved difficult as news crews camped outside his office and chased him down hallways.

In a private weekly luncheon for Republican senators in the Capitol, Vitter briefly spoke and received a round of applause audible outside the room. Vitter told his colleagues he was sorry for the trouble he had caused them, and thanked them for their messages of support, said a senator who heard the speech and described it on background because of the private nature of the luncheons.
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When Vitter left, while the hearing continued, reporters chased him down a hallway until he turned and calmly addressed them. He said he and his wife already had made “very straightforward statements about all of this. And I look forward today to being back at work, really focused on a lot of important issues for the people of Louisiana, like what we were discussing in the committee hearing.”

MSNBC.com