GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards was publicly exposed at his trial as a staggeringly selfish politician and shameless liar who cheated on his wife as she suffered from incurable cancer.
Yet it was the Justice Department that wound up publicly embarrassed on Thursday as federal prosecutors’ attempt to turn Edwards’s misdeeds into criminal convictions ran aground in a courtroom here.
Continue Reading The outcome of the six-week trial was a high-profile blow to the Justice Department’s beleaguered Public Integrity Section and a told-you-so moment for many in the legal community who ridiculed the case from its outset.
After nine days of deliberation, the jury deadlocked on five of the six felony counts the former senator faced. The government had accused him of orchestrating nearly $1 million in payments two wealthy Edwards donors made to hide his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, from the media during a critical phase of his 2008 bid for the White House.
Within hours of the verdict, there were signals that the government would not take another crack at convicting Edwards.
“It’s very unlikely that there will be a retrial,” a federal official who asked not to be named told POLITICO.
Jurors listened to a star government witness who struggled under cross-examination, to confusing campaign finance rules and to murky instructions about how to decide whether Edwards ran afoul of the law.
The prosecution insisted Edwards violated a “very simple” federal statute limiting campaign donations to $2,300 a person. But on the only count for which jurors did reach a unanimous verdict, Edwards was acquitted.
“Bringing the case was a black eye for the Justice Department,” said Ken Gross, a campaign finance lawyer who briefly served as a consultant to Edwards’s defense team. “This makes it that much worse that the jury saw through it.”
“The failure to get a criminal conviction on any count raises a serious question about whether it should have been brought as a criminal case,” said Hampton Dellinger, a former North Carolina deputy attorney general who sat through the trial as a legal analyst for NBC News. “It’s just hard to see how they could have a better opportunity for conviction than they had. … I do think it’s a huge setback for the government.”
The decision to go ahead with an indictment of Edwards was made last year by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who heads the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Attorney General Eric Holder was recused from the case, apparently because he participated in the Obama campaign’s vetting process for vice presidential nominees or because of his ties to one of the lawyers who initially represented Edwards, former White House counsel Greg Craig.
In a press release announcing the indictment, Breuer said Edwards’s actions were an affront to “the integrity of democratic elections.”
“We will not permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws,” declared Breuer, a well-respected lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under President Bill Clinton.
Yet it was the Justice Department that wound up publicly embarrassed on Thursday as federal prosecutors’ attempt to turn Edwards’s misdeeds into criminal convictions ran aground in a courtroom here.
Continue Reading The outcome of the six-week trial was a high-profile blow to the Justice Department’s beleaguered Public Integrity Section and a told-you-so moment for many in the legal community who ridiculed the case from its outset.
After nine days of deliberation, the jury deadlocked on five of the six felony counts the former senator faced. The government had accused him of orchestrating nearly $1 million in payments two wealthy Edwards donors made to hide his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, from the media during a critical phase of his 2008 bid for the White House.
Within hours of the verdict, there were signals that the government would not take another crack at convicting Edwards.
“It’s very unlikely that there will be a retrial,” a federal official who asked not to be named told POLITICO.
Jurors listened to a star government witness who struggled under cross-examination, to confusing campaign finance rules and to murky instructions about how to decide whether Edwards ran afoul of the law.
The prosecution insisted Edwards violated a “very simple” federal statute limiting campaign donations to $2,300 a person. But on the only count for which jurors did reach a unanimous verdict, Edwards was acquitted.
“Bringing the case was a black eye for the Justice Department,” said Ken Gross, a campaign finance lawyer who briefly served as a consultant to Edwards’s defense team. “This makes it that much worse that the jury saw through it.”
“The failure to get a criminal conviction on any count raises a serious question about whether it should have been brought as a criminal case,” said Hampton Dellinger, a former North Carolina deputy attorney general who sat through the trial as a legal analyst for NBC News. “It’s just hard to see how they could have a better opportunity for conviction than they had. … I do think it’s a huge setback for the government.”
The decision to go ahead with an indictment of Edwards was made last year by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who heads the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Attorney General Eric Holder was recused from the case, apparently because he participated in the Obama campaign’s vetting process for vice presidential nominees or because of his ties to one of the lawyers who initially represented Edwards, former White House counsel Greg Craig.
In a press release announcing the indictment, Breuer said Edwards’s actions were an affront to “the integrity of democratic elections.”
“We will not permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws,” declared Breuer, a well-respected lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under President Bill Clinton.