The Federal Grand Jury probing disgraced 2 time Presidential loser JOHN EDWARDS are intensifying their nearly two year investigation into possible misuse of campaign funds to orchestrate a conspiracy of silence about his affair with former campaign worker Rielle Hunter and the elaborate cover-up that followed, The ENQUIRER has learned.
Overseeing the intense investigation is George Holding, the U.S. attorney in Raleigh appointed by President George W. Bush, with help from FBI and IRS agents and attorneys from the Justice Department in Washington, AP reports
North Carolina’s senators have implored President Barack Obama not to replace Holding until he finishes this historic probe.
Previously testifying were Edwards, his mistress Hunter and former loyalist Andrew Young (who is believed to have pulled a "John Dean" giving up his boss so not to perjure himself) who detailed the cover-up in his book The Politician where he confirmed The ENQUIRER’s ground-breaking reports of alleged financial malfeasance by Edwards use of funds earmarked for a failed presidential bid in an attempt to buy the silence of key witnesses and orchestrate a cross-country cover-up.
The conspiracy was FIRST exposed in a series of exhaustive ENQUIRER reports from 2007 though the present.
AP reported today that additional subpoenas issued in the case requested e-mails, records and other material related to more than two dozen individuals and organizations connected to Edwards and his allies throughout his political career.
Among those recently subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury was 100 year old contributor Bunny Mellon who’s gifts to the Edwards campaign came in cash wrapped in boxes of chocolate.
Atop the subpoena list, read to the AP by a source with access to a subpoena, is the Alliance for a New America, a political 527 group, named for the tax code section that governs it.
Also on the list is a similar private entity called Alliance for a New America LLC, or AFNA LLC, and Edwards’ former campaign manager Nick Baldick, who ran the political 527 group in support of Edwards’ bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination
Federal records show that about $3.3 million of the $4.8 million raised by the 527 was distributed to AFNA LLC for unspecified "consulting services."
The 527 and the LLC shared not only the same name, but the same Alexandria, Va., post office box and the same contact, Baldick associate Katherine Buchanan.
Detailing Bunny Mellon’s support via hefty campaign donations to Edwards and his PAC, Mellon single-handedly bankrolled the Alliance for a New America political group with $3.5 million from her investment fund, Oak Spring Farms, which are also listed in federal subpoenas.
Mellon’s attorney, Alexander Forger, when called to testify before the grand jury, said he had assumed that all the money had gone to advertising and related expenses. He was surprised to learn it was transferred to the AFNA LLC.
"I didn’t know that you could get away with that kind of ambivalence as to where it went," Forger said. "You ought to know where the money went. Just to park it in an LLC doesn’t seem to be much in the way of disclosure."
The subpoenas are also seeking pertinent data about the Center for Promise and Opportunity, a nonprofit that Edwards formed in 2005. It is believed that Edwards may have laundered the money for use in the cover-up though the non-profit org.
AP reported that one person familiar with the grand jury probe reported that Feds what to know whether Edwards used the center as a shell organization for the failed presidential campaign.
If so, that may be the final bullet in the Edwards smoking gun of shame that will lead, some feel, to a possible indictment of the former Senator from North Carolina.
SEE PREVIOUS ENQUIRER COVERAGE BELOW (follow the money)
