More scandal the Democrats don't need - It is alledged that Edwards' poverty foundation paid Hunter

[karynnj]

in addition to the campaign paying her. The article says that non-profits have stricter rules than campaigns. From this Newsweek article, it does not sound good. The timing on this is likely awful, because if there is an indictment, wouldn't the trial be close to the 2010 elections or still pending. (I did notice this is Isikoff, who I think broke the Monica story - which is the only grain of salt I can find.)

A nonprofit group that John Edwards set up to fight poverty paid $124,000 for Web videos and photos to the former Democratic presidential candidate’s mistress, say four lawyers familiar with the payments. The Center for Promise and Opportunity wrote the previously unreported checks to videographer Rielle Hunter in late 2006, the same year Edwards acknowledged he started a “liaison” with her. (Edwards contended originally that he cut off the relationship that year. He admitted more recently he’s the father of Hunter’s daughter, born in February 2008.) The checks have since been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in North Carolina as part of a sprawling criminal investigation into nearly $1.5 million in payments from various Edwards entities and campaign contributors that were for Hunter’s benefit, say the lawyers, who asked not to be identified talking about an ongoing probe.
<snip>
The payments to Hunter were made at the same time that Edwards’s political action committee was separately paying her a similar amount to produce Webisodes promoting Edwards as a political figure. (The Webisodes became a source of controversy within the campaign; some aides thought they were “goofy and unpresidential,” says a former top Edwards aide who also asked not to be identified due to the ongoing probe.) But the payments from the tax-exempt center could raise separate issues if federal prosecutors determine that Edwards misused the group’s assets, since the rules for such tax-exempt groups are stricter than those for political committees.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/03/12/edwards-used-nonprofit-to-funnel-money-to-hunter.aspx

The comments by the the lawyer from the now defunct non-profit actually seem to hurt as it really seems the non-profit was, as some said, created to build up Edwards, as much as to fulfill it's stated mission. I am not a lawyer, but this really does not look good to me - any lawyers' comments?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Time for the ship to desert a sinking rat.

And to think I supported that bastard. (Although there was always something slippery about him that I didn't fully trust...)

[karynnj]

2. It is very hard to disbelieve someone who is saying things that you agree with

It is impossible, even reading all you can on any candidate, to really know what kind of person they are. In fact, I suspect that it is the mostly morally shallow of politicians who can most easily project an idealistic image of who they are. This does make them look and sound very smooth. The more integrity they really have, the more embarrassment they will let show if they try to not tell the complete truth or did not live up to their values.