The American Spectator

AmSpecBlog

Here's Johnny, Again

By John Tabin on 5.5.09 @ 6:42PM

John Edwards is back in the news: His wife Elizabeth is out hawking a new book (Catch her Thursday on Oprah!), and there's a federal investigation into whether Edwards improperly used campaign money to pay off his mistress, Rielle Hunter:

Edwards's political action committee, One America, paid Hunter a total of $114,000 for videos she shot to show Edwards's offbeat side as he traveled the country in 2006 promoting his anti-poverty plans. The last of those payments, for about $14,000, was made in April 2007, right around the time that Edwards's campaign paid One America, which was nearly out of funds at that point, about $14,000 for what was listed as a furniture expense.

"I'm sure Rielle is thrilled that she got paid for being a piece of furniture." snarks Deceiver. "Well, technically it's true. He did spend a lot of time on top of her."

By the way, as usual, the National Enquirer was way ahead of the mainstream media on this; they had the story about the investigation a month ago.

Mickey Kaus asks Joe Trippi what he knew and when. Ben Smith asks similar questions of other campaign aids. Lee Stranahan rakes Elizabeth over the coals.