The Week: Most Recent Democratic Party:John Edwards sex scandal

John Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter: 6 sordid details from her new book

The Week — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:07:00 -0400

This month, federal prosecutors said they would not retry John Edwards — the former Democratic senator from North Carolina and a two-time presidential candidate — on charges of illegally using campaign contributions to hide an extramarital affair with his mistress Rielle Hunter. A jury in North Carolina had earlier acquitted him on one count of finance fraud and deadlocked on five other counts, enabling Edwards to avoid what could have been a hefty prison sentence. However, Hunter's new memoir — What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me — is unlikely to help...

Can John Edwards make a comeback?

The Week — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:11:00 -0400

This week, a federal jury found John Edwards — the former senator from North Carolina and a two-time presidential candidate — not guilty on one count of campaign finance fraud. With the jury hung on five other counts, he managed to avoid as much as 30 years in prison, but his fall from grace could not have been bumpier. Edwards was accused of illegally using campaign money to cover up his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, who gave birth to their out-of-wedlock daughter. The trial featured testimony dramatizing the emotional damage he inflicted on his dying, cancer-stricken wife...

The John Edwards mistrial: What now?

The Week — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:00:00 -0400

After seven weeks of trial, nine days of jury deliberation, and a final, wild afternoon of mixed signals and false starts, a federal jury found former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) not guilty on one count of felony campaign finance fraud and was deadlocked on the other five. Judge Catherine Eagles declared a mistrial, and Edwards walked free, at least for now. "I want to make sure that everyone hears from me and from my voice that while I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing something illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that is wrong," Edwards told reporters from the courthouse...

The John Edwards trial: 4 key questions

The Week — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:00:00 -0400

Disgraced two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is finally getting his day in court. Edwards, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2004, went on trial in North Carolina Monday for allegedly using nearly $1 million in unreported campaign contributions to cover up an affair with his one-time campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter. Edwards' lawyers say he didn't break campaign finance laws because he used the money to hide the affair to avoid humiliating his cancer-stricken wife, the late Elizabeth Edwards, not to further his 2008 bid for the presidency. If convicted, Edwards...

John Edwards in exile

The Week — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:39:00 -0400

LAST YEAR JOHN Edwards sat with a longtime friend in the 10,000-square-foot house that is the centerpiece of his 102-acre Chapel Hill, N.C., estate. The friend, a New Jersey lawyer named Glenn Bergenfield, who had attended law school with Edwards, was one of the select few members of a diminishing club: those whom the disgraced Edwards wanted to see, and those who wanted to see him.

Sometimes Bergenfield just listened. Edwards, under criminal indictment, always talked about his children and often of his late wife, Elizabeth, and, after a while, he usually got around to the matter of Rielle...

John Edwards' 'creepy' mug shot

The Week — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:47:00 -0400

The image: Earlier this month, John Edwards, the fallen Democratic golden boy from North Carolina, was indicted on charges of illegally spending nearly $1 million in campaign funds to cover up his affair and love child with videographer Rielle Hunter during his 2008 run for president. Edwards pleaded not guilty to six counts of conspiracy, issuing false statements, and violating campaign contribution laws. On Wednesday, his mug shot was released to the press (see a larger version of the photo below), prompting a certain incredulity: Even in a dark hour before a typically unflattering camera, Edwards...

5 lessons from John Edwards' fall

The Week — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:31:00 -0400

John Edwards' indictment Friday, on charges that he used $925,000 in campaign contributions to hide an extramarital affair and love child, capped a spectacular fall from grace for the former Democratic senator and vice presidential nominee. Edwards reportedly turned down a plea deal because prosecutors wanted him to spend six months in prison to avoid a trial. What can other politicians, and all of us, learn from his downfall? Here, five lessons:

1. The cover-up is worse than the crime
Though it was undeniably loathsome that Edwards cheated on his then-cancer-stricken wife, the late Elizabeth Edwards...

John Edwards indicted: What happens next?

The Week — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:58:00 -0400

On Friday afternoon, disgraced North Carolina Democrat John Edwards appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally raised and spent nearly $1 million to hide his affair with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. Edwards — the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2004 and a top presidential candidate in 2008 — was indicted on six counts after a two-year investigation of the cover-up, which came during his 2008 campaign for the White House. Here, a brief guide to the case:

What are the details of this affair?
The basic facts are not...

Does John Edwards deserve a plea deal?

The Week — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:23:00 -0400

Disgraced former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is reportedly seeking a plea deal before prosecutors charge him with using $1 million from wealthy donors to hide an affair with Rielle Hunter, the campaign videographer then pregnant with Edwards' child. Word is that the Justice Department has decided to formally indict the former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee. If Edwards can reach an agreement with prosecutors, he could avoid an embarrassing trial, but he'd likely have to give up his law license and maybe even spend some time behind bars. A fitting...

John Edwards' disappearing act

The Week — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:13:00 -0400

He was once the golden boy of Democrat politics. But in the wake of his damaging sex scandal, the 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards has "literally disappeared from the national scene," says Diane Dimond in The Daily Beast, and is "becoming a ghost" in the area of North Carolina he calls home. The former senator's time, it seems, has been divided between brief visits with his children, hanging out in local bars and "huddling with legal advisers" on how best to "stave off a possible federal grand jury indictment" on $1 million in campaign funds he is alleged to have used to pay off one-time...

Casting the 'John Edwards' movie: Top six suggestions

The Week — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:37:00 -0400

So much for John Edwards' image rehab: The Politician, the Edwards' tell-all written by former aide Andrew Young, may soon be adapted for the big screen. Young recently signed with Hollywood "superagent" Ari Emaneul and new reports indicate that West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin may pen the screenplay. The blogosphere weighs in on the burning (if premature) question: Who should portray the precisely coiffed, onetime "presidential" cheater:

1. Tom Cruise
Nobody's a better fit, says Ravi Somaiya in Gawker, than Tom Cruise, "who can channel his years of experience as a good-looking man with shiny...

Is Rielle Hunter a victim?

The Week — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:58:00 -0400

In a new GQ interview, Rielle Hunter has finally said something, anything, about her affair with John Edwards and the resulting child. But it's the photos accompanying the GQ piece that have provoked debate. Hunter told Barbara Walters she screamed and wept for two hours after seeing the "repulsive" shots in which she poses, half-dressed, on the bed she shares with the infant daughter she conceived with Edwards. Did GQ trick Hunter into boudoir photography, as she suggests, or is she fabricating outrage to gain sympathy? (Watch an NBC report about Rielle Hunter's interview)

Hunter knew what she...

11 things you didn't know about Rielle Hunter

The Week — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:12:00 -0500

The first time most people heard the name Rielle Hunter was when the National Enquirer reported in 2007 that she was having an affair with then-presidential candidate John Edwards. As part of an investigative series that today has the weekly tabloid garnering serious consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, the paper later broke the news that Hunter had given birth to Edwards's love child. But before Hunter became synonymous with this scandal, she led a rather colorful — and quirkily high profile — life. Here, 11 things you may not have known about John Edwards's mistress:

"Rielle" is an...

'The Politician': John Edwards' worst nightmare?

The Week — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:31:00 -0500

John Edwards may want to stay out of the country indefinitely. Or at least until the buzz over "The Politician," a damning new book by former Edwards aide Andrew Young, blows over. Young, who has since fallen out with the one-time Presidential candidate, claims that every detail about Edwards and his notorious affair with mistress Rielle Hunter came from private conversations and eyewitness accounts. (Edwards' personal fall-out, reports Reuters today, has culiminated in a separation from his wife, Elizabeth.) "The Wall Street Journal" got its hands on a copy of "The Politician" and spilled some...

A John Edwards sex tape?

The Week — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:25:00 -0500

Things just keep going downhill for John Edwards. Reportedly, "The Politician" — a new tell-all book by his estranged confidant Andrew Young that hits shelves next week — revisits allegations that Edwards and his former mistress, Reille Hunter, filmed a sex tape. Now Gawker.com is citing a source who claims to have seen the DVD. Could Edwards possibily have shown such poor judgment? (Watch a report about rumors that John Edwards proposed to Rielle Hunter)

It probably doesn't exist: I'm "doubtful," says Allahpundit at Hot Air. The authors of "Game Change" dug up an incredible amount of...