First we learned that Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) appointed his mistress as U.S. Attorney without disclosing his affair. His spokesman denied that he only appointed her because she was sleeping with him, but no one outside his office believed that spin.

Now The Hill reports that the powerful Democrat took the same mistress on taxpayer-funded trips around the world. Yes, your tax dollars went to fly a senator’s mistress to the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

Former U.S. attorney nominee Melodee Hanes traveled abroad with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and six other staff members twice at the end of 2008, both times as a member of the lawmaker’s office.

Those two trips — to the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam — occurred while Hanes was serving in an official capacity as the state director for the Montana Democrat, but before Baucus recommended her for an attorney position she later turned down. …

All received the same per diem of roughly $200 for the UAE trip and more than $700 for the Vietnam stop, according to foreign travel reports published in the Congressional Record.

While it is normal for staff members to accompany lawmakers on foreign events and meetings, the Senate Finance Committee chairman’s trip in particular could raise some ethical red flags, experts suggested on Saturday.

Hanes has been dating Baucus since the summer of 2008, and if she was invited on a trip that “she would not have gone on otherwise” based on her position, Baucus may find himself in the wrong, noted Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

How wonderful to discover that a powerful senator took his mistress along for the ride (so to speak) on Senate junkets while taxpayers were handed the bill.

Now it’s no longer a simple ethical lapse on the part of Max Baucus. It’s just pure corruption now, with the senator using taxpayer funds and federal positions to further his extramarital sex life.

It’s time for Senator Baucus to resign. Montana’s governor is a Democrat and can, supposedly, appoint a replacement from the same party that was elected. But Baucus no longer deserves to maintain the office he occupies.