John Edwards Paid Rielle Hunter With Campaign Funds

John Edwards paid his mistress Rielle Hunter with campaign funds, according to a new report, which is a federal crime. Edwards has tried to spin it to make it look like Rielle was paid for video footage, even though she was already paid in excess of $100,000 for her work shooting video of Edwards on the campaign trail. Here is a summary of the story:

• Edwards’ OneAmerica political action committee paid Rielle $14,000 for 100 hours of of cutting-room floor videotape.
• Edwards insisted during an interview Aug. 8 that he broke off the affair and confessed his infidelity to wife Elizabeth in 2006. But Hunter appeared at campaign events in the final days of December. One such event was his formal campaign announcement in New Orleans, which Elizabeth did not attend.
• Edwards said several times in his interview with ABC News the affair was short-lived, but there is evidence that Edwards and Hunter spent months together in 2006, traveling the world and the country as he prepared for his second run for the White House.
• One of Hunter’s friends, Pigeon O’Brien, told the AP that Hunter told her the affair with "John from North Carolina," who was married to a woman who had been seriously ill, began in March 2006. That conflicts with Edwards’ statement the affair started only after he hired Hunter to produce several videos for his Web site, the first payment for which came in July 2006.
• Hunter and a business partner founded Midline Groove Ltd. in June 2006.
• Midline Groove Ltd. is the company Edwards campaign contracted to shoot video of his campaign.
• Legal experts assert that payments made to Rielle were hush money, but were made to look like payments for her work from his political action committee.
• Edwards has denied Rielle was paid to cover up the affair, and said he had no knowledge that Fred Baron was sending money to both her and a married Edwards staffer, Andrew Young (41), who later claimed to be the father of Hunter’s daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter. She was born in February 2008.

A federal investigation needs to be conducted to see if John Edwards campaign funds were paid to Reille Hunter after the two started having an affair, and broke federal campaign fund laws. Edwards appears to be a liar, a cheater, and a crook, but he was still on the Barack Obama vice presidential running mate short list.