It's amazing that even after Edwards' confession, the denial of his Kossack defenders perserveres. Forget Elizabeth's statement, and the ridiculously maudlin fawning response of this community. Guys, the guy is still lying. Elizabeth is complicit in the lies. He likely broke campaign finance regulations. He paid the mistress over 100k for videos that hardly aired. Yes, he essentially used your money to pay off his mistress! How can you say that it "doesn't matter," or that all of this is somehow an invasion of his privacy, when he is mishandling campaign donations made in good faith. It's like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Anyway, the mainstream media is now fully engaged, and making Edwards look more and more duplicitous and pathetic by the day.
This is from politicalwire.com summarizing the recent New York Times story about what appears to be a wide-ranging effort to pay hush money to all involved -
The revelations of ties among the lawyers" involved in the effort to protect Edwards "emerged through public records and interviews with people close to Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter, which suggested that their affair went on longer than Mr. Edwards admitted and that the effort to conceal it by Mr. Edwards's inner circle was much more extensive than has been reported."
The paper says the Edwards "went to unusual lengths" to make a final $14,000 payment Ms. Hunter. As the AP notes, the payment to Hunter "is significant because its source was Edwards' OneAmerica political action committee, whose expenditures are governed by U.S. election laws. Willfully converting money from a political action committee for personal use would have been a federal criminal violation."
Several people close to Edwards have told Political Wire that Edwards' insistence that the affair was over before he announced his candidacy -- which photos now call into question -- is important to protect him from campaign finance violations.
Here's a couple of key paragraphs from the New York Times article itself:
After initially saying that he did not know how the lawyers were chosen to represent Ms. Hunter and Mr. Young, Mr. Baron acknowledged that he might have played a role.
The revelations of ties among the lawyers emerged through public records and interviews with people close to Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter, which suggested that their affair went on longer than Mr. Edwards admitted and that the effort to conceal it by Mr. Edwards’s inner circle was much more extensive than has been reported.
The review found that Mr. Edwards’s political action committee went to unusual lengths to make a final $14,000 payment to Ms. Hunter’s film company months after its contract with the committee had ended. The payment was issued while the committee was short on cash and could pay its bills only after receiving thousands of dollars from Mr. Edwards’s presidential campaign and donations from four people, including Mr. Baron’s wife.
And, as you might imagine, there's a lot more to come. This is also from politicalwire:
The National Enquirer's editor talks to Cindy Adams: "We have exclusive photographic evidence, pictures, videos, hard proof to further incriminate Edwards. He doesn't at this point know what we have, which is why I'm asking that we don't reveal too much yet. And which we will use unless and until he acknowledges paternity."
All of this will have to be reckoned with. To those who want to shut this story down, I say blame Edwards for its continuance. If he came completely clean in his Nightline appearance, there would be little opening for the press to investigate further. Instead, his evasions, lies and half-truths opened the door even wider, allowing this thing to keep dragging out, increasing the distraction to Obama's campaign. I guess that's what happens when you're "99% truthful."
Edwards is an absolute unmitigated embarassment, and his defenders, in their blind mindless adulation, share the blame for what he has wrought.