Now he has made that stand official, pleading not guilty to charges that he accepted $925,000 in illegal contributions from two supporters to fund the deception.
On Friday a grand jury indicted Edwards, 57, on six counts of violating campaign finance laws, lying to the government and conspiring to protect his candidacy by breaking the law.
The case against Edwards could rise or fall on whether the federal government is reaching too far and trying to hold Edwards to a higher election law standard than usual. Notably, the first paragraph of the 19-page indictment said that a “centerpiece” of Edwards’ candidacy in 2008 was “his public image as a devoted family man” and that he often stressed to voters that “family comes first.”
The government maintains that by accepting money to keep his mistress, Rielle Hunter, and eventually their baby, Frances Quinn Hunter, out of sight, he was trying to maintain the viability of his candidacy. Therefore, said the government, the money constituted undeclared campaign contributions.
“There is no question that I have done wrong, and I take full responsibility for having done wrong,” the former senator from North Carolina and 2004 vice presidential nominee told reporters Friday after emerging from the federal courthouse in Winston-Salem, N.C. “I will regret for the rest of my life the pain and the harm that I have caused to others. But I did not break the law, and I never, ever thought I was breaking the law.”
Edwards did not take questions. Nor did he mention his wife, Elizabeth, who had incurable cancer when he began his affair. She died in December.
Edwards’s attorney, Gregory Craig, called the prosecution “unprecedented.”
“No one has ever been charged, either civilly or criminally, with the claims that have been brought against Senator Edwards today,” said Craig, who managed President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense. “No one would have known, or should have known, or could have been expected to know, that these payments would be treated or should be considered as campaign contributions.”
According to the indictment, the result of a grand jury investigation that lasted more than two years, Edwards solicited and accepted about $725,000 from Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a 100-year-old banking heiress, and more than $200,000 from Fred Baron, his national campaign finance chairman. Edwards, said the indictment, “failed to disclose these illegal contributions” to the Federal Election Commission.
Edwards’ former aide, Andrew Young, was a key witness. He helped solicit the money, falsely claimed he was the father of Hunter’s child, and took his wife and three children into hiding with Hunter.
Mellon first began giving money to Edwards in spring 2007, when the presidential campaign was in full swing. She was upset that he was being criticized for two $400 haircuts and decided to give money that would not be reported on his federal disclosure forms.
“From now on, all haircuts, etc., that are necessary and important for his campaign,” she wrote in a note to Young, “please send the bills to me. ... It is a way to help our friend without government restrictions.”
Baron, who died in 2008, paid for at least five chartered planes to whisk Hunter and the Youngs from Florida to Aspen, Colo.; San Diego; and Santa Barbara, Calif. He spent nearly $20,000 on hotels in Hollywood, Fla., and San Diego, and more than $58,000 on rent for a Santa Barbara mansion.
Several experts in election law said they did not know of any case in which prosecutors brought charges against a candidate for using money from a wealthy contributor to hide a personal matter. Normally such violations are handled as civil penalties and result in fines and requirements for the candidates to repay the money.
But other election law experts think the government’s case may be sound.
If prosecutors can show that Edwards conspired to receive donations that he wouldn’t have to report and that false reports were filed under his signature, they may be able to show a “fairly straightforward conspiracy,” said Matt Miner, a former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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