"Judge says Edwards case witness contacted others" by Michael Biesecker | Associated Press, April 24, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. - A key prosecution witness in the criminal trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards contacted other witnesses in the case to ask about their planned testimony, a possible violation of federal law, a judge said Monday.
US District Court Judge Catherine C. Eagles said that former Edwards aide Andrew Young called the three other witnesses in the last two weeks.
Eagles ruled that lawyers for Edwards could mention the improper
contact to jurors in opening statements Monday, but barred them from
using the term “witness tampering’’ or telling the jury that Young had a
one-night stand with one of the other witnesses in 2007.
The former candidate sat silently in the courtroom Monday morning as the lead federal prosecutor called him a man who would say or do anything to get elected president, including violating the law to hide his affair and keep his campaign viable....
A defense lawyer for Edwards told the jury that most of the money at issue in the case went not to support Hunter, but was siphoned off by Young and his wife to build a $1.5 million “dream home’’ near Chapel Hill. Edwards’s lawyers contend that the payments were gifts from friends intent on keeping the candidate’s wife from finding out about the affair. Elizabeth Edwards died in December 2010 of cancer.
Yeah, except she already knew about the affair and was looking to help cover it up.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Who Gives a Damn?
What's with the obfuscating omission from the AmeriKan media anyway?
A key issue will be whether Edwards knew about the payments made on his behalf by his national campaign finance chairman, the late Texas lawyer Fred Baron, and campaign donor Rachel “Bunny’’ Mellon, an heiress and socialite, now 101 years old. Each had already given Edwards’s campaign the maximum $2,300 individual contribution allowed by federal law.
Edwards denies having known about the money, which paid for private jets, luxury hotels, and Hunter’s medical care. Prosecutors will seek to prove he sought and directed the payments to cover up his affair, protect his public image as a “family man,’’ and keep his presidential hopes viable.
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"Aide says Edwards doubted he fathered mistress’s child; Young testifies ’08 candidate had money sent" by Michael Biesecker | Associated Press, April 25, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. - John Edwards’s first reaction when he learned his mistress may be pregnant was to downplay the chances he was the father, calling the woman a “crazy slut,’’ his former close campaign aide testified Tuesday....
Months later, as word of the candidate’s affair began to leak in the
run-up to the crucial Iowa caucuses, Andrew Young said Edwards asked the aide
to falsely claim paternity of the baby.
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GREENSBORO, N.C. - The August 2008 exchange, also recounted in Young’s tell-all book, reads as if pulled from a political thriller. It was Young’s third straight day of testimony as the government sought to prove Edwards masterminded a scheme to use nearly $1 million from wealthy campaign donors to conceal his affair with Rielle Hunter from voters.
Young had falsely claimed paternity of Edwards’s daughter with Hunter as the politician dismissed the stories as “tabloid trash.’’
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Edwards denies knowing about the secret money, much of which flowed into accounts controlled by Young and Young’s wife, Cheri. Edwards’s lawyers claim the Youngs siphoned off the bulk of the money to pay for their $1.5 million house near Chapel Hill.
Young testified that when Edwards asked him in 2007 to claim paternity, the candidate pledged to set the record straight after the baby was born. Yet months passed, and Young said he and his wife had grown tired of sharing a house with the increasingly demanding Hunter. Young demanded a face-to-face meeting with the senator, who was then in talks with Barack Obama’s campaign about becoming the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Edwards asked Young to keep the secret longer at a June 18, 2008, meeting in a hotel room near Washington, Young testified. The men shouted and nearly came to blows....
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Next Day Update:
"Edwards aide discusses cash; Money allegedly for mistress was spent on his home" by Michael Biesecker | Associated Press, April 27, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. - John Edwards’ former aide acknowledged Thursday that much of nearly $1 million in campaign supporters’ cash went to build his North Carolina dream house, not to buy the silence of the presidential candidate’s pregnant mistress.
The questions about the cash came toward the end of a full day of cross-examination in which Lowell sought to undermine the former aide’s credibility and paint him as a pathological liar.
Lowell asked Young whether he first learned Rielle Hunter was pregnant in May 2007, as his book says; in June 2007, as he testified; or in early July, a date backed by phone records and Hunter’s medical records.
The timeline issues could challenge the accounts of conversations Young said he had with Edwards about whom to ask for money to help take care of Hunter.
Young said he couldn’t recall the exact date for either event....
Young’s testimony is considered key to the prosecution’s case that Edwards directed a scheme to use the money from the heiress and a Texas lawyer to conceal his affair with Hunter....
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