Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is under investigation for possibly illegally using campaign funds to pay off a woman with whom he had an adulterous affair.
Federal investigators are looking into whether former Senator Edwards (D-North Carolina) improperly used campaign funds to pay his one-time mistress Rielle Hunter. His political action committee paid Hunter's firm $100,000 for video production in a four-month span in 2006, and then paid an additional $14,000 on April 1, 2007. That same day, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Edwards' presidential campaign paid the PAC $14,000 for what is listed as a "furniture purchase." Hans von Spakovsky, a former FEC commissioner, notes there is a very strict provision in federal campaign finance law that prohibits candidates from using campaign contributions for personal use. He admits it is hard to tell yet whether Edwards broke the law. "Supposedly this money went to this woman's video production company for doing work for the campaign. What they're going to be investigating is whether that's really true, whether those payments were actually for that or whether that was basically a cover for making payments to his one-time mistress," he points out. "And that's going to take an investigation to see what work was actually performed, if any, for this payment." Von Spakovsky says if the Edwards campaign is unable to show that the $14,000 in furniture was purchased, the former senator will be "in big trouble." He adds that Edwards could be subject not only to civil but also criminal penalties if the government concludes that he knowingly and willfully violated the law.
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