Edwards Redux

[AdamSmith]

As if we hadn't had enough of him. (And here I am posting this.)

Ex-Edwards Aide to Write Tell-All

By JIM RUTENBERG and MOTOKO RICH

A man who was one of former Senator John Edwards’s closest aides has a deal to write a book claiming that Mr. Edwards said he “would be taken care of for life†in return for falsely claiming he was the father of the baby carried by Mr. Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter.

The aide, Andrew Young, sold his book proposal to St. Martin’s Press for an undisclosed price late last week. In his proposal, Mr. Young quotes Mr. Edwards, a Democrat who was his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004 and ran for president last year, as begging him to confess to fathering Ms. Hunter’s baby.

“ ‘You know how much I love you,’ Edwards said. ‘You know I’d walk off a cliff for you, and I know you’d walk off a cliff for me,’ †Mr. Young wrote in the book proposal. “ ‘I will never forget this. And I will always be there for you.’ †The proposal was shared with The New York Times by a book publishing industry executive. Portions of it were reported over the weekend by The Daily News of New York.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether any of Mr. Edwards’s campaign money was improperly used with regard to his affair or efforts to keep it from becoming public. Mr. Young wrote that he had been questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and had been subpoenaed to speak before a grand jury.

A spokeswoman for the United States attorney in Raleigh, N.C., would not comment. Mr. Edwards has issued statements saying he is confident his campaign acted properly.

After news of Mr. Edwards’s affair and Ms. Hunter’s pregnancy first surfaced in the National Enquirer in fall 2007, a lawyer for Mr. Young said his client was the father. Mr. Edwards was preparing for the Iowa presidential caucuses at the time.

Mr. Edwards denied being the father after admitting the affair last summer, and there is yet to be DNA testing. A spokeswoman for Mr. Edwards’s legal team, Joyce Fitzpatrick, said Mr. Edwards had not seen the book proposal, and she would not comment on it. A lawyer for Ms. Hunter, Robert J. Gordon, said he no longer represented her.

Mr. Young’s proposal states that he was writing the book because he had become disillusioned with Mr. Edwards’s behavior and recklessness, which he said included participating in the production of a sex tape with Ms. Hunter that Mr. Young later discovered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/us/polit...tml?_r=1&hp