GREENSBORO, N.C. — Lawyers for John Edwards worked Wednesday to undercut the federal government’s criminal case against the former presidential candidate before it ever gets to a jury.
Edwards is to be tried in January on charges that he asked two wealthy campaign donors to provide nearly $1 million in secret payments used to hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for the White House in 2007 and early 2008.
In a hearing to consider five motions seeking the dismissal of the case, lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client knew nothing of the checks, cash and private jets used to fly the woman, Rielle Hunter, across the country and put her up in luxury homes and hotels.
But even if Edwards did know, Lowell told U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles, no laws were broken.
“Criminal laws are supposed to be written in Congress,” Lowell said. “They should not be written on the desks of prosecutors who decide after the fact what is to be permissible.”
Eagles asked both parties to return today for additional questions, but she didn’t indicate whether she intended to rule on any of the motions at that time.
Lowell argued there is no statute or precedent in federal law where a campaign contribution is defined as money “provided by a third party to another third party” that never went through a campaign account.
Much of the undisclosed money was funneled to Andrew Young, a close aide to Edwards who left the campaign and falsely claimed paternity of the child the senator had with Hunter.
Young and his wife invited the pregnant Hunter to live in their home near Chapel Hill and later travelled with her as tabloid reporters sought to expose the candidate’s extramarital affair.
Prosecutors countered Wednesday that they intend to prove Edwards knew full well about the money and that he personally directed its use to support Hunter.
He was not a cheating husband trying to hide his affair from his wife, they argued, but a public figure who had built his reputation as a family man desperate to keep his campaign from blowing up.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/27/2011