Posted on 05/03/2012 8:30:32 AM PDT by bkopto
When the National Enquirer broke a story that presidential candidate John Edwards was having an affair, Edwards' campaign was worried by mistress Rielle Hunter's initial reluctance to issue a denial. Instead, she wanted to put out a flip statement that she was "abducted by aliens."
The Enquirer's story triggered an emotional meltdown by Edwards' wife Elizabeth, who was coping with terminal cancer at the time of the revelation in October 2007.
She confronted her husband in an airport parking lot, collapsing a heap, then tearing off her shirt and bra.
That testimony sent daughter Cate Edwards out of the courtroom in tears and riveted those who remained Wednesday.
But the subtler part of the testimony was apparently to show that Edwards' campaign was involved in the affair.
Edwards is charged with violating campaign finance laws by using more than $1 million from wealthy donors to hide his pregnant girlfriend. He could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Part of Edwards' defense is that he used the money to hide the affair from his wife, which may be a sin, but not a crime.
Christina Reynolds, former research director for Edwards campaign, told the court Wednesday that after the Enquirer story came out the campaign had a conversation with Hunter about issuing a denial.
Hunter's response, Reynolds said, was that she wanted to release a flip comment that she had been "abducted by aliens."
"My concern was that if (she) was hedging on issuing a straight denial, we wouldn't know what she would do," Reynolds testified.
The prosecutor asked what would have happened if the story had grown, and Reynolds replied, "I don't think it would have been good. I think it would have been very bad for the campaign."
Hunter eventually issued a denial without mentioning aliens.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
You mean she wasn't?
I never heard that part. Now the "aliens" angle doesn't seem so weird...
Elizabeth Edwards topless in an airport parking lot would have seemed like an alien invasion.
“Hunter eventually issued a denial without mentioning aliens.”
Hindsight is always 20/20.
The two statements refer to different women; the first to Elizabeth Edwards who probably wanted to confront John the scumbag with her suffering (mastectomy?) while the second refers to the ditz mistress. However, you’re not far off in implying we get the same result.
I cannot understand how women I know were so gung-ho about Edwards. Maybe it was his looks because if they even took a cursory look at his ambulance-chasing past, they would have second thoughts. Too many of those women are like Elizabeth (ambitious yet self-sacrificing) and Hunter (New Age bimbos). The cost to our country is that they support and vote for clowns like Edwards, Clinton and Zero.
Translation: If she wouldn't tell lies as directed, then she was going to be unpredictable. She might occasionally speak the truth. This worried us a great deal -- you just can't run a political campaign under those circumstances.
Yes, I understand that.
I meant only that the whole story is getting weirder all the way round.
I knew a lot of women who voted for Bill Clinton for Ark AG, his first office, just because he was handsome.
Edwards was using campaign donations to hide his pregnant girlfriend while his wife died of cancer and Obama took the lead in the campaign. The man disgusts me. That behavior puts him in the same moral category as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, Reid, Pelosi, wife-beating swimmer Teddy Kennedy, Barney Frank, and the rest of his disgusting political party’s elitist leadership. Catastrophically flawed people like this are the reason why we should all favor limited government.
They were/are one strange bunch.
Did they mean to say “collapsing in a heap” or is ABC going Beverly Hillbillies on us? As in, "I sure enjoyed them vittles a heap Granny."
Did she hire this guy?
$$$ doesn’t buy class.
who behaves like this???? Educated, lots of $$$, and acting like Jerry Springer rejects.
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