Edwards' ally explains $14,000 payment to mistress
My Way News

WASHINGTON (AP) - A $14,000 payment to John Edwards' mistress from the candidate's political action committee - after she stopped working for it - was made in exchange for 100 hours of unused videotape she shot producing short Web movies for which she already had been paid $100,000, an associate of Edwards told The Associated Press.

The explanation, which Edwards' advisers declined to discuss on the record, is the first effort to justify the payment in April 2007 to Rielle Hunter, which came months before Edwards' chief fundraiser quietly began sending money himself to the pregnant woman.

Edwards last week acknowledged he had an affair with Hunter in 2006. The former Democratic presidential contender and senator from North Carolina has denied any knowledge of those payments to Hunter from Fred Baron, Edwards' national finance chairman and a wealthy Dallas-based trial attorney. Baron also has described his payments to Hunter as a private transaction.

But the earlier, $14,000 payment to Hunter is significant because its source was Edwards' OneAmerica political action committee, whose expenditures are governed by U.S. election laws. Willfully converting money from a political action committee for personal use would have been a federal criminal violation..... [read more]