Tag: Rielle Hunter

Neil Lewis of The New York Times disappointingly mixes factual reporting and hearsay from a tabloid-type, book proposal by a dubious character in the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter drama and presents it as a news story on the grand jury investigation into the contributions Fred Baron made to Hunter from Edwards' presidential campaign fund.

The factual reporting includes the topics of Hunter's grand jury testimony:

Ms. Hunter testified to the grand jury in detail about her relationship with Mr. Edwards, lawyers involved in the case said, as well as the benefits she was provided by his supporters after she became pregnant.

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Adding insult to injury to his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, Gawker is reporting that John Edwards has decided to move Ms. Rielle Hunter and their baby to the Edwards' North Carolina neighborhood so he can help raise her. Gawker reports:

Elizabeth Edwards told The Enquirer that she flipped out when she found out about Hunter's move to their neighborhood.She's always figured the child may be John's, but the positive DNA result really floored her. And as if that wasn't bad enough, John told Elizabeth he needed to be in his daughter's life - and that Rielle was moving to North Carolina.

"He told Elizabeth he was tired of all the lies, and that's why he was ready to publicly admit Frances is his baby. "That's when Elizabeth exploded! In a fit of rage, she grabbed a suitcase and started packing her things . . ."

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John Edwards' former lover, Rielle Hunter, spent 9 hours at the federal courthouse in Raleigh, N.C. yeterday. She brought her daughter and was escorted into the courthouse by two F.B.I. agents.

Maybe she couldn't get a babysitter, but this seems a little over-the-top.

The grand jury is investigating whether Edwards' campaign misused funds in paying Hunter for her video work. [More....]

The New York Times reported Thursday that Fred Baron, the Texas lawyer who served as Finance Chair for John Edwards' campaign, not only may have paid money to Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young from his personal funds, but that he might have recommended their lawyers to them.

But what went unnoticed was that the two lawyers shared an important connection to Mr. Edwards that suggests they were part of an orchestrated effort to protect him, one that is continuing even after he admitted last week that he had an affair with Ms. Hunter but denied that he fathered her child. The lawyers are linked through Fred Baron, a wealthy Dallas lawyer and former finance chairman for the Edwards campaign who was a key player in the campaign’s response to the scandal. Mr. Gordon has worked with Mr. Baron on class-action personal injury cases,...

Unnoticed? The Times does not report that blogs such as Deceiver and Riehl World View have been reporting this for days. [Added: Deceiver says it's the McGovern angle it out-scooped the Times on, not this one.)

Yesterday, I brought out another reason to suspect Baron and lawyers for Young, Hunter and even John Edwards had coordinated their denials of the paternity allegation against Edwards to the media: [More...]

I have an article at Pajamas Media today, Reframing Iowa without Edwards. It points out that the operative time period for the inquiry into the effect of an Edwards' withdrawal from the race is October, 2007, when news of his affair was first reported and he issued his first denial. The question should be what if he dropped out then? To answer it, there are other factors to consider besides second choice candidate preferences on the eve of the January 3 caucuses or during entrance polling, as others have focused on.

In the end, I conclude there's no way to know what would have happened.

But now, get ready for the next Edwards bombshell. The Enquirer is reporting (already picked up by the New York Post) that Edwards rekindled his affair with Rielle Hunter in 2007 -- during the time period when her baby likely was conceived.

If that's true, and it's a big if, regardless of whether Edwards really is the father of Hunter's baby, it gives even greater weight to the argument that Edwards should have dropped out of the race in October, 2007 when reports of their affair surfaced, rather than issue denials. [More..]

With each new detail, the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter saga continues to raise more questions than it answers.

First, there's Newsweek reporter Jonathan Darman's new article about his relationship and many meetings with Rielle Hunter. She's very new age -- astrology, auras, energy fields, etc. He was covering Edwards in Iowa in 2006 when he met Rielle and they stayed in touch and met several times. Very strange story.

Then, there's the real mystery man in all this: Bob McGovern. He's the guy who separately drove both Rielle and Edwards to the Beverly Hilton for their meet-up. Edwards told Nightline that McGovern was the one who called him that afternoon and asked for the meeting. Edwards also told Nightline that he only agreed to the meeting if McGovern would be there too.

Edwards' never said how he knew Bob McGovern. So who is Bob McGovern? Apparently, a new age healer from Santa Barbara. [More...]

Rielle Hunter's ex-husband is a lawyer who is also the son of former Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter, infamous for his handling or mishandling, depending on your view, of the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Rielle Hunter and Alexander "Kip" Munro Hunter III were married for 10 years.

Here's more on Fred Baron, the Dallas lawyer and former John Edwards campaign chief who provided relocation funds (his own, not the campaign's) to Hunter and Andrew Young to relocate.

Hunter also was the inspiration for the Alison Poole party-girl character in Jay McInerney's book, Story of My Life. More on Hunter here.

The New York Times tries to figure out why politicians go on TV to do mea culpas.

Narcissism doesn’t lead politicians to believe that they can have an affair and get away with it. It leads them to believe that they can go on television and dispel it.

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