Free Republic

What happened to President Obama’s majority? The surface-level answer to this question is simple. Donald Trump won over a supermajority of white working-class voters while holding on to many traditional Republicans, allowing him to win the Electoral College. At the same time, down-ballot Republicans built on their solid showings in 2010 and 2014, which helped them retain control of Congress and significant power in the states.

John Edwards Revisits His Past, Hanging Law Shingle Again BY PETER LATTMAN AND KIM SEVERSON Before he served as a United States senator, before he made a run at the presidency and before his political career collapsed amid a sex scandal and fraud trial, John Edwards was a trial lawyer. Now, Mr. Edwards is returning to his roots and opening a new law practice. The plaintiffs’ firm, Edwards Kirby, reunites him with his former partner, David F. Kirby, and includes on its payroll his eldest daughter, Cate Edwards. “The reason we formed this firm is because we all believe in...

Former presidential contender John Edwards has reactivated his license to practice law and is setting out on the speaking circuit. The two-time presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator is scheduled to appear June 6 at a private retreat in Orlando, Fla., for lawyer clients of the marketing firm PMP. A records check with the N.C. State Bar shows Edwards has also reactivated his license to practice law, which had been inactive for more than a decade.....

Rielle Hunter and John Edwards ended their controversial relationship last week, just days after her new book debuted and she went public about how they met, hid their affair and had a baby girl together. "We are a family, but as of the end of last week John Edwards and I are no longer a couple. Not at all," Hunter told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America."

Live updates of the John (Breck Girl) Edwards federal campaign finance law violation trial.

Former Sen. John Edwards allegedly used the services of a call girl employed by accused Soccer Mom Madam Anna Gristina while he was running for President, according to a report. The woman told investigators that Edwards paid her for sex during a 2007 visit to New York to raise money for his failed White House bid, DNAinfo reported Thursday. Edwards’ lawyers did not comment, the website said.

(Reuters) - A federal judge has ordered that the criminal trial of former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards be delayed three months until January 2012. The delay was granted Wednesday after Edwards' lawyers requested more time to prepare a defense against charges that Edwards violated campaign finance laws. Following Edwards' indictment in June, the trial was initially set for July. It was delayed until October, but Edwards' lawyers sought even more time to review some 400,000 pages of documents generated by the government's 34-month investigation.

John Edwards' mug shot released By: CNN Political Unit (CNN)–Former U.S. Senator John Edwards, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and campaign law violations in early June. His mug shot was obtained by CNN following a Freedom of Information Act request. The plea came after a federal grand jury indicted him on six counts, including conspiracy, issuing false statements and violating campaign contribution laws. A grand jury has been investigating whether money given to support Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, by benefactors of Edwards should have been considered campaign donations, a contention Edwards' team has disputed. A plea deal between the two-time...

John Edwards is a vain, lying scum who cheated on his wife while she was dying of cancer. But one thing far worse than his contemptible conduct is the government's effort to put him in jail for it. In this case, prosecutors are exploiting a vague, confusing law to criminalize conduct that has not been treated as a crime before. The only good news is that its prosecution is so ill-founded and over the top that it is likely to fail. Federal prosecutors have a checkered record of late when it comes to high-profile public officials. Former Illinois Gov. Rod...

The Washington Post has issued a post-mortem on the career of John Edwards ("American Dream is Irrevocably Undone") and finds tragedy and pathos. "The man born Johnny Reid Edwards had it. Great gobs of potential." He might have been, the Post laments, "a great husband, could have been an enduring statesman ... president." But fate intervened. With his indictment on misuse of campaign funds last week, "America witnessed the latest distasteful episode in ... (the) fall from grace of a political comet." Grace, as any unblinkered observer could detect, is not a word that ever belonged in the same sentence...

<p>Breaking: Federal Grand Jury Indicts Former Presidential Candidate John Edwards.</p>

As expected, the Department of Justice landed with both feet on former Senator and one-time Democratic nominee for Vice President John Edwards today. The DoJ released a grand jury indictment on six counts — four of illegal campaign contributions, and one each of conspiracy and making false statements to the FEC: John Edwards, a two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was indicted today on charges of conspiracy and false statements. The indictment is the culmination of a secretive federal probe that has been going on for more than two years. The...

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal indictment is looming for former presidential candidate John Edwards, who is still sitting on $2.8 million in his campaign fund from 2008. Whether he could use that money to fight potential criminal charges depends on the Federal Elections Commission, which makes recommendations on a case-by-case basis. ... Edwards will have little recourse to rehabilitate his image and renew his legal career if confronted with charges involving the money used to cover up his extramarital affair. A plea to a felony charge involving campaign finances could strip him of his law license, ending any hope he...

A newspaper claims former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards would reportedly kill himself before he is forced to go to jail. Edwards is under investigation for improperly using campaign funds to cover up an affair he had with a woman in which a child was conceived while he was still married to the late Elizabeth Edwards. A grand jury has been meeting near Raleigh, and recently, a key witness in the case was re-interviewed. According to The Daily Mail, the National Enquirer has written that Edwards told a friend, 'I won't go to jail. I'd kill myself first!' The statement...

Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards is facing “imminent” indictment relating to his use of campaign funds to cover up an extramarital affair during his 2008 presidential run, according to The National Enquirer. A grand jury has been investigating the North Carolinian's use of the funds since April, and the Enquirer quotes a friend of Edwards saying that, although the former candidate does not believe he did anything wrong, he is “terrified” that he will be made an example of in this case. And in a soap opera twist, Elizabeth Edwards may in fact testify against her estranged husband, The Hill...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A North Carolina judge wants security officers to accompany a former John Edwards aide as he goes to retrieve a sex tape of his former boss. Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones said in an order released Monday that the Orange County sheriff has appointed a security firm to help recover the video and other items. Former Edwards loyalist Andrew Young has said he has the original tape and copies stored in an Atlanta safety deposit box. Jones wants the security officer to accompany Young into the vault. Jones has declared Young was in contempt for not...

A spate of salacious new details about John Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter – and his handlers’ desperate, and possibly felonious, attempts at damage control – has become the source of endless talk recently with the publication of the bestselling campaign post-mortem “Game Change” and former campaign aide Andrew Young’s tell-all, “The Politician.” Edwards is just one in a long line of ambitious pols to cheat on his wife, and his affair with Hunter shares a number of interesting parallels with the sex scandals of previous presidents and candidates for the office.

John and Elizabeth Edwards Legally Separated In Tell-All-Book, Ex-Edwards Aide Says Couple Discussed How Cancer Would Help in the Polls By JAMES HILL, NADINE SHUBAILAT and LAUREN SHER Jan. 27, 2010 With John Edwards' electrifying U.S. Senate win in 1998, it was his wife Elizabeth Edwards who captivated the nation. A strong, smart, resilient woman, she became one of her husband's greatest political strengths. "He was young and good looking and charming [and] his wife did not fit Hollywood's central casting of what a political wife should look like. She was a little bit heavy-set. She was an attorney in...

There's unpopular, there's widely loathed, there's despised, and then there's John Edwards. Americans are a tolerant people, but they have a line, and evidently when you cheat on your cancer-stricken wife, lie about it to everyone while running for President and then decline to acknowledge fathering a love child for two years, you've crossed it. Given the towering stack of strikes against him, can Edwards resume any kind of public life? Short of curing his wife's cancer, is there anything he could do to get people to at least tolerate him? According to a recent poll, the former presidential candidate...

The executive editor of the National Enquirer says he plans to enter his paper's work on the John Edwards scandal for a Pulitzer Prize. Don't laugh. "It's clear we should be a contender for this," Barry Levine said by phone Thursday, hours after the former presidential candidate admitted what the newspaper had been reporting all along: that he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. "The National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, was able to publish this reporting." Although the staff never doubted its reports that Edwards had fathered a baby girl with his former campaign videographer, Levine said, "there is...