John
Edwards on mistrial: ‘While I do not believe I did anything illegal, I did an
awful, awful lot that was wrong’
John
Edwards’ campaign finance fraud case came to an end with a declared mistrial Thursday when jurors
acquitted him on one charge and deadlocked on the other five, unable to decide
whether he used money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress
while he ran for president and his wife was dying of cancer.
The
monthlong trial exposed a sordid sex scandal, but prosecutors couldn’t convince
jurors the candidate masterminded a cover-up using about $1 million, and
ultimately, jurors decided tawdry didn’t necessarily mean criminal.
It
was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would retry Edwards on the other
counts.
Edwards
was quoted saying….“I don’t think God’s through with me. I really believe he
thinks there’s still some good things I can do and whatever happens with this
legal stuff going forward, what I’m hopeful about is all those kids that I’ve
seen, you know in the poorest parts of this country and some of the poorest
parts in the world that I can help them,” he said.
The
jury reached a verdict on count three, which involved to $375,000 given by
elderly heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon in 2008. The other counts dealt with
$350,000 Mellon gave in 2007, money from wealthy Texas attorney Fred Baron,
filing a false campaign finance report and conspiracy.
In my opinion about this whole case, I believe that Edwards was wrong in fathering a child outside of his marriage, and I also believe he was wrong to use any funds of his campaign to support his mistress. This is also another tax-payers losing case, that we the taxpayers had to foot the bill for.
