Updated 4:28 p.m.
A team of three Justice Department public integrity prosecutors, working with federal prosecutors in North Carolina, make up the government's prosecution team against former U.S. Senator and president candidate John Edwards.
DOJ announced today that a grand jury indicted Edwards for his alleged role in a scheme to violate federal campaign finance laws. Edwards, 57, represented by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom partner Gregory Craig and local counsel, was charged in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina with conspiracy, false statements and accepting illegal campaign contributions. A copy of the indictment is here.
“Mr. Edwards is alleged to have accepted more than $900,000 in an effort to conceal from the public facts that he believed would harm his candidacy,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement. “As this indictment shows, 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.”
Prosecutors allege Edwards, during his presidential candidacy, conspired to accept and receive campaign contributions to “protect and advance his candidacy from disclosure of an ongoing extra-marital affair and the resulting pregnancy.” The government contends Edwards used the funds to pay for the living and medical expenses of Rielle Hunter, with whom Edwards had an affair.
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One key figure in the indictment is the late Fred Baron, prominent Democrat and plaintiffs' personal injury lawyer in Dallas. Baron is "Person D" in the Edwards indictmentour sibling publication Tex Parte noted today. Baron was Edwards' finance chairman for his 2008 presidential run.
The Edwards prosecution puts DOJ’s Public Integrity Section back in the national spotlight. Lawyers in the unit came under fire in 2008 and 2009 for the botched prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Three former members of the section, former chief William Welch II, Brenda Morris and Edward Sullivan, remain under criminal investigation for their roles in the failed prosecution.
Public Integrity trial attorneys David Harbach II and Jeffrey Tsai are assigned to the Edwards prosecution, in addition to the section’s deputy chief, Justin Shur. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Higdon Jr. and Brian Meyers in North Carolina are working with the Main Justice team. Higdon is the criminal division chief for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, in Raleigh.
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