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Edwards Trial Postponed By Teresa Cajot At the request of defense attorneys, the trial date for former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards has been postponed until January 2012. Edwards’, who was indicted in June, was originally scheduled to go to trial in July to face charges related to the use of campaign funds to conceal an extramarital affair. The initial trial was delayed until October, but on Tuesday Edwards’ attorneys requested another extension to examine the 400,000 pages of documents that the government compiled during its two year investigation.
According to the court order, written by US Chief District Judge James A. Beaty, a continuance is in order due to the uncommonly large amount of discovery to be considered. Defense attorneys cited both the volume of discovery and the fact that the government charges against their client are built on ‘’an unprecedented theory of liability that had never been used before in any criminal proceeding.’’ According to court documents, the discovery includes 3,532 pages of grand jury testimony and nearly 84,000 pages of email from the Edwards’ presidential campaign of 2008. Edwards’ charges, which consist of conspiracy, violating campaign finance laws, and issuing false statements, center around the sum of about one million dollars used to hide an affair with Rielle Hunter. Fred Baron and Bunny Mellon paid out more than $900,000 to cover expenses for Hunter, who has a child with Edwards. The money, which was given directly to Hunter and one of Edwards’ staffers, was essentially used to conceal the affair and the subsequent pregnancy during his 2008 bid for nomination to the Democratic ticket. While prosecutors argue that the contributions transcended the allowable limits, the defense argues that the donations were not truly connected to Edwards’ campaign because the money came from Edwards’ friends. His attorneys further argue that Edward’s had a personal reason, rather than a political one, for hiding the affair, and therefore would have attempted to blanket the issue whether he was a political
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candidate or not. According to his attorneys, the former US Senator from North Carolina was actually trying to prevent his wife from discovering the affair. The government, however, says that the money was used to contain the scandal, in an effort to maintain his presidential ambitions. Edwards’ attorneys also noted that a campaign contribution is not officially accepted until it has been deposited. To that end, a large amount of the money was not even deposited until after Edwards terminated his candidacy. A check in the amount of $175,000 from December of 2007 was not actually deposited until February of 2008. Similarly, a $200,000 check from January of 2008 was not deposited until April of that year. In a request to have the criminal charges against Edwards dismissed, his lawyers argued that the case is about politics rather than an actual crime. They pointed out that within a month of pinning the charges on Edwards, George Holding, the prosecutor and former US Attorney who happens to be a Republican, announced plans to run for Congress in 2012. ‘’Politics can be a rough-and-tumble business where partisan interests collide, but that is not supposed to be true of the criminal justice system,’’ said Edwards’ attorneys. If convicted, Edwards could face a maximum fine of $1.5 million and 30 years in prison.
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