I know it's old news, I know it's gossip, I know I am going to get skwered for this dairy, but my God I read NYT's story on John Edwards stunned at novel revelations about the audacious plans to keep the Hunter affair a secret while he ran for president (and later on, a cabinet position). Essentially, prosecutors are wondering if payoffs to a candidate's mistress to ensure her silence should be considered campaign donations and thus reported, a novel legal conundrum. The machinations and background deals and discussions were numerous. Among other details ...
... Donors were told that he needed money for "personal issues". They were not told that the money was being used to buy Rielle Hunter a BMW, among other things.
... He promised Rielle an NYC rooftop wedding with the Dave Matthews Band after his wife had passed away.
... "Friends and other associates of Mr. Edwards and his wife of 32 years, Elizabeth, say she has resisted the idea of her husband’s claiming paternity."
... At one point, Edwards approached a donor, Mr. Baron, about helping him fake a DNA test.
There was no question about his paternity. Edwards pleaded with Young to accept responsibilty, hoping the affair would be written off as a political aide's infidelity. Rielle gave her daughter the middle name Quinn, which people who have spoken to her claimed was a proclamation that her child was Edward's fifth.
UPDATE: People in the comments are saying that I should link how all these details were connected in the article. As I responded in the comments, with some additional clarifications:
"The article is an account of how donors were involved in funding not just the things that were done to keep Rielle quiet (the transportation and housing, and in JE's case, the outlandish promises) but how a JE approached them to help him fake DNA tests and how EE might possibly too have wanted to keep things quiet.
I guess the Dave matthew's band thing seems tangential when pulled from the article like this, but essentially, Hunter was kept at bay with funding and wedding promises but she named her baby possibly with a silent procalamation of paternity in mind and she eventually came forward in court and seemed to turn her baby's face towards the cameras, as the article claimed, and publicly seemed to now demand attention."