John Edwards

The more I read about John Edwards' shenanigans during the 2008 presidential campaign, the more I'm convinced he is a mirror-gazing, fork-tongued, tramp-chasing weasel. But the more I read about the federal case against him, the more sure I am that he does not deserve to go to jail. The trial to determine if Edwards broke campaign finance laws has begun and it promises to be as lurid and titillating as Ken Starr's vivid account of President Clinton's fling with Monica Lewinsky. Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, is likely to take the stand.

A Los Angeles man serving a life sentence for murder was released Monday after prosecutors conceded that their star witness had perjured himself. During 19 years behind bars, John Edward Smith, a 37-year-old former gang member, adamantly maintained his innocence in the drive-by shooting, insisting that he was miles away at his grandmother's house at the time of the crime. His claims went unheard until three years ago, when a fledgling wrongful convictions group, Innocence Matters, took his case and identified problems with the testimony of the lone witness to identify him as the killer.

Spurred by a Freedom of Information Act request from CNN, the government Wednesday released mug shots of indicted former presidential candidate John Edwards. Edwards pleaded not guilty in a North Carolina federal court earlier this month to charges that he funneled dollars intended for his campaign for use in an effort to shield his relationship with mistress Rielle Hunter from becoming public. A grand jury charged Edwards, 58, with six felony counts, including conspiracy, issuing false statements and evading laws that limit federal campaign limits.

If it were legal, I'd suggest political campaigns stop handing out position papers and instead hand out free movie tickets to see "The Campaign. " The movie, which I saw last weekend instead of the latest "Resident Evil" film (as if), stars Zach Galifianakis as the marshmallow-spined schlub plucked from obscurity to run as a Republican against the Democratic incumbent, played by Will Ferrell, a John Edwards empty suit with a full head of hair. This is not a Swiftian heir to films like "Bulworth," "The Candidate," "Election" or event the kinder, gentler "Swing Vote.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Jurors are set to resume deliberations Monday morning over whether John Edwards conspired to violate election laws to cover up an affair during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. They have sat through 17 days of oft-lurid testimony about Edwards' dalliance with Rielle Hunter and the baby they had together. Prosecutors say Edwards, 58, illegally solicited $925,000 from 101-year-old heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and the late Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer, to hide the child from Edwards' cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, and prevent his campaign from imploding in scandal.

Rielle Hunter, the former mistress of John Edwards, won ownership through a legal settlement Thursday of a sex tape she and Edwards filmed at the time of his 2008 campaign for president. The tape was being held in a vault at a North Carolina courthouse pending a lawsuit filed by Hunter against former Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife, according to the Associated Press. The couple, with whom Hunter lived in 2007 while she was pregnant with Edwards' baby, claimed Hunter had left the tape in a box of trash.

Last week, jury selection began for John Edwards' trial in Greensboro, N.C. He's charged with accepting and concealing nearly $1 million in illegal campaign contributions during the 2008 Democratic presidential race. It's an extraordinary moment. Usually, allegations of campaign finance shenanigans are handled as civil matters by the bipartisan appointees on the Federal Election Commission. Unfortunately, the agency's most significant decisions have often loosened the bonds of campaign law. But Edwards has been charged in a federal criminal proceeding with "knowingly and willfully" breaking the law. That means a jury of regular folks, not Beltway partisans and lawyers beholden to the system, will determine his guilt or innocence.

Former senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been connected by a New York online news site to Anna Gristina, the "Millionaire Madam," a claim that Edwards has swiftly denied. According to DNAinfo , a New York City crime news site, a call girl working for Gristina divulged to the Manhattan district attorney's office that she was paid to service Edwards in 2007, while he was in the city to raise money for his presidential bid. Allison Van Laningham, a lawyer for Edwards, released a statement on the allegations, and has requested that the story be retracted.

DURHAM, N.C. - A year after indicting former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on campaign finance fraud charges, the Justice Department on Wednesday dismissed all remaining charges against the former North Carolina senator. The dismissal came 13 days after a federal jury in Greensboro, N.C., acquitted Edwards of one felony charge and deadlocked on five others, prompting a mistrial. Jurors later said prosecutors did not offer convincing evidence that Edwards had used campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress and save his campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination from scandal.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Opening statements are set for today in the trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards, as federal prosecutors try to prove that more than $900,000 paid to Edwards by two wealthy benefactors during his run for the White House should have been reported as campaign contributions because the money flowed to his mistress to preserve Edwards' image as a "family first" candidate. Edwards' defense team is expected to argue that the payments were gifts from wealthy friends and the money was used for expenses unrelated to the 2008 campaign.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - If one figure looms large in absentia this week at the Democratic National Convention, it is John Edwards. The former U.S. senator plummeted in a seeming instant from his party's golden young man to a tortured tabloid cliché. Edwards infamously cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, and fathered a child with a campaign worker, then tried to cover up the mess. So the North Carolinian with the perfect hair and the sweet-tea voice is nowhere to be seen this week.

Rielle Hunter probably won't have America's shoulder to cry on after announcing today on ABC's "Good Morning America" that she and former presidential candidate John Edwards broke up just days ago. "We are a family, but as of the end of last week, John Edwards and I are no longer a couple," Hunter said on the program. Hunter has been in the public eye of late due to her new memoir, "What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me. " It details her controversial affair with Edwards while his wife, Elizabeth, was slowly losing her battle to cancer.

Disgraced politician John Edwards had his say , though not on the witness stand. Andrew and Cheri Young had their say , in court, in print and, possibly, in an Aaron Sorkin movie. Before she died of breast cancer in December 2010, Elizabeth Edwards had her say, in a memoir she called “Resilience.” The government had its say , when it unsuccessfully prosecuted Edwards for misuse of campaign funds. And the people spoke as well, when a jury acquitted Edwards on one count of campaign finance violations and deadlocked on five others.

DURHAM, N.C. - A year after indicting former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on campaign finance fraud charges, the Justice Department on Wednesday dismissed all remaining charges against the former North Carolina senator. The dismissal came 13 days after a federal jury in Greensboro, N.C., acquitted Edwards of one felony charge and deadlocked on five others, prompting a mistrial. Jurors later said prosecutors did not offer convincing evidence that Edwards had used campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress and save his campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination from scandal.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Almost from the moment John Edwards was indicted a year ago, some legal analysts warned that a criminal case was nearly unwinnable. It was unprecedented and unwise, they said, to expect a jury to convict a politician for accepting money from friends to deal with an intensely personal matter. After a federal jury acquitted Edwards on one charge of violating election laws and deadlocked on five other charges, prompting a mistrial, the decision to prosecute a philandering politician for campaign finance fraud was still under debate Friday.

WASHINGTON -- The trial of John Edwards is over, but the public soon will learn more details about his career-ending affair with Rielle Hunter. Edwards' former mistress has written a tell-all memoir, to be released June 26. The book, "What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me," details Hunter's affair with the former presidential candidate during the 2008 contest that led to an out-of-wedlock birth, campaign finance fraud...

GREENSBORO, N.C. — For a fourth day Wednesday, the jury in the John Edwards trial deliberated without reaching a verdict in a case focused on an illicit affair and federal campaign finance laws. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards violated election laws when payments from two wealthy donors were used to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during Edwards' failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors contend that Edwards solicited $925,000 in illegal contributions from the donors in order to hide the affair and keep his campaign from collapsing in scandal.

So here, again, are two Americas. In one of them, John Edwards is little more than a late-night TV punch line. But in the other America, inhabited by North Carolinians like Claude Neville, the philandering politician and his beleaguered family are not celebrity abstractions, but flesh-and-blood neighbors. "If I see him again I'll speak nice," said Neville, who lives around the corner from Edwards' secluded, $6.7-million compound. "The Bible says you're supposed to forgive."

To retry or not to retry. That is the question for federal prosecutors after the dusky verdict in the John Edwards trial. The answer, according to a report in USA Today , is that the toothsome and well-coiffed former North Carolina senator will be spared another courtroom ordeal. That's probably the correct and prudential decision following Edwards' acquittal on one count and a hung jury on five others.  It's possible that a different jury might convict Edwards on the  charges  that stymied this one, but  it seems more likely that the evidence that left this (apparently conscientious)

GREENSBORO, N.C. - An eighth day of jury deliberations in the John Edwards trial passed without a verdict Wednesday, but not without several episodes of drama that played out behind closed doors. After receiving a note from a juror, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles cleared the courtroom, twice, to confer privately with prosecutors and defense lawyers. Eagles provided no details, and defense lawyers and the court clerk declined to comment after jurors went home for the day. The same issue also prompted the judge to meet twice in her chambers with the lawyers.