AP Sources: Edwards emails acknowledge payments

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By NEDRA PICKLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors have obtained emails between John Edwards and a former aide to use as evidence at trial that he knew about payments to his pregnant mistress even while he was publicly denying it, people familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Monday.

Dozens of emails were exchanged between Edwards and his former speechwriter Wendy Button as they worked on a never-released draft statement to acknowledge paternity of his out-of-wedlock child, according to people who have seen the messages and requested anonymity because they have not been made public yet.

The messages, draft statements and notes of their related phone conversations are key evidence prosecutors are using against Edwards, indicted on charges he failed to report nearly $1 million allegedly spent to keep his mistress out of the public eye as he pursued the White House. The former senator was still denying he was the baby's father and publicly maintained he knew nothing about any money that may have been spent when the emails were sent in summer 2009.

Prosecutors must prove the 2004 vice presidential nominee had knowledge of the payments to convict him in the campaign finance case. Edwards proclaimed his innocence of any crime after being indicted Friday.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110606/D9NMM6681.html

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In this June 3, 2011 file photo, former presidential candidate John Edwards outside federal court appearance in Winston-Salem, N.C. Prosecutors have obtained emails between John Edwards and a former aide to use as evidence at trial that he knew about payments to his pregnant mistress even while he was publicly denying it, people familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Monday. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

[rateyes]

1. What is it with men and their inability to keep their

peckers where they belong?? On edit: I am male.

[bigworld]

2. Especially when they're in the public eye

John Edwards, Anthony Weiner... just what the hell were you thinking?!

[Auntie Bush]

6. They weren't thinking!

That's the problem. How can you control yourself when you don't think about what you're doing.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JJW]

3. Pointless to make public statement

No one, including their own mothers would believe anything they say now.

[Old Codger]

4. Goes with

The arrogance they seem to build with whatever level of power they think they have.

[bertman]

5. We've got Wall Street stealing us blind and breaking laws left and right. We're in two wars.

The criminals who were in the White House from 2000 to 2008 are running around scot free. But our DOJ is spending millions to prosecute John Edwards for his misuse of mistress money.

No wonder this country is so fucked up.

[Pterodactyl]

7. And to think this guy almost got elected vice president!

Can you imagine if this stuff started coming out while he was in office? It would have been a huge disaster for America and for the party.

[Bluebear]

10. It would have been a "national disaster"??? Wha?

[Pterodactyl]

14. Yes, it would have been like that Lewinsky scandal all over.

[w4rma]

11. As opposed to hiring the entire Goldman Sachs financial staff? (nt)

[Pterodactyl]

15. Huh? I don't vote for Goldman Sachs.

[karynnj]

16. It is entirely possible that none of this would have happened had they won

I don't think the Edwards mythology of being the perfect husband and father were ever true - mythology never is, but there was nothing of this sort found in the vetting or by the media, which ironically spoke of him as "Bill Clinton without the bimbo eruptions.

It seems clear that in 2004, his ego became inflated and many people say that he changed. I wonder if that change where he became extremely narcissistic made it impossible for him to cope with both the loss - especially as he had no Senate seat to return to - and his wife's cancer. Rielle saw him and told him he was very special - matching his own view of himself. That might have been her biggest attraction.

Had he become VP, he would have worked on whatever Kerry decided best helped the administration and he would have been "home", not out trying to start a campaign. He was a media favorite - and I do not doubt that they would have spotlighted him and Elizabeth as she dealt with cancer and acted as VP and second lady. His entire life could have been different.

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. His affair with Ms. Hunter occurred AFTER he was the VP nominee

[truthisfreedom]

8. I'm going to preface this by announcing that it's rather shallow, don't read it if you're sensitive.

Say I'm John Edwards, at the peak of my political career. Say I meet this videographer (or whatever it is exactly that she is) and I'm working with her. I'm sorry, but seriously, in this situation, "love is blind" does not apply. I would not get involved with her. If I'm a politician and I'm going to risk going down as a result of UNPROTECTED SEX with a woman, she had better be worth it to the point where my average fellow man would look at her picture and say to himself, "Wow, lucky guy, too bad he fucked up. I can see why he fell for her." Not "Hmm... really? Her? WTF?"

I just don't find that woman attractive in the least. She makes Monica Lewinsky look like she's got a "certain something."

[K8-EEE]

9. Sometimes "sexy" doesn't necessarily mean "beautiful"

or handsome or whatever.....I know in my life I've sometimes been enormously attracted to people who were not classically good looking and had dud dates with guys I had thought were gorgeous before I started talking to them.

[Garbo 2004]

12. She was telling him how awesome he was, how he was destined for greatness,

all her new agey dirty talk. He swooned, seeing himself mirrored in her eyes. And he was a horn dog.