>“Okay, this is completely ridiculous. John, you are a scumbag. You got that? A complete scumbag. But that’s not illegal.< ??
Edwards is not on trial for being a scumbag. He is on trial for converting campaign funds to personal use.
Edwards is not on trial for being a scumbag. He is on trial for converting campaign funds to personal use.
The charges are dubious. He solicited money from some rich people to pay off Rielle Hunter. He could easily have written the check to Rielle Hunter himself, but then Elizabeth Edwards would have noticed the missing money.
The whole thing rests on the idea that covering up the affair was in fact a campaign expense because Edwards was more electable if people didn't know about it. That's really a stretch. Essentially, they are trying to interpret the law to say that a candidate can't solicit money for anything. That's not what the law says.
Let's say Edwards had urged a contributor to secretly give a million dollars to cancer research. (Extremely unlikely, but bear with me.) If someone could show that cancer survivors were more likely to vote for Edwards, would Edwards have thus solicited a campaign contribution because the donation increased the number of cancer survivors?
I am very much against stretching laws to apply where they should not.