The prosecution rested in the JOHN EDWARDS criminal trial but not before forcing him to turn away in shame from a video of himself lying to America.
Yet, the day before, a cocky Edwards was overheard saying “That’s ALL they got?” after a panoply of former aides testified that he not only repeatedly lied about the cover-up but exhibited documented evidence to back up their case that Edwards misused funds from two Presidential campaign donors to buy a conspiracy of silence.
Multiple witnesses testified, confirming that the NATIONAL ENQUIRER’s bombshell world exclusive release of photos of Edwards holding his love child on August 6, 2008, sent Team Edwards into a “doomsday scenario”.
The ENQUIRER’s historic exclusive so shook Edwards that, despite the urging of key advisors not to go on television, the former Senator was two days later lying to a stunned Bob Woodruff on ABC Nightline.
During that historic interview, Edwards admitted the affair but denied the paternity of his daughter, trying to allege the child was former loyalist Andrew Young’s.
THAT video was show to jurors yesterday in Greensboro, N.C. as Edwards tensed, closing his eyes as the jury saw him on video profess his “deep and abiding love” for estranged wife, Elizabeth, who battled cancer during the affair and died in December 2010.
He looked away from the screen as the jury saw Him deny paternity of baby Frances Quinn. “Not true. Not true,” Edwards lied in the clip when Woodruff asked if he was the father. Invited to take a paternity test, Edwards said he "would love to see it happen.”
Edwards also denied he was the man photographed by The ENQUIRER holding his love child at the Beverly Hilton hotel – where ENQUIRER reporters Alan Butterfield and Alexander Hitchen caught him visiting his daughter and the baby’s mother, his mistress Rielle Hunter, on July 21, 2008.
“I don’t know who THAT baby is,” Edwards said in the ABC video. “I have no idea what that picture is.”
In the video he also denied the knowledge that key money man, late Dallas lawyer Fred Baron, was funding Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter’s media hiding game.
Without calling the potentially sketchy Hunter to testify or 102- year-old Listerine heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, feds presented a strong case against the disgraced two-time presidential loser.
As in any case involving an elaborate conspiracy and cover-up (see: Watergate 101) key evidence was all about following the money trail.
Prosecutors showed the jury receipts from Baron’s efforts to hide Hunter using Andrew Young as a paternity dodge — including luxury-hotel tabs, private-jet invoices, a $20,000-per-month house rental in Santa Barbara and a $325,000 wire transfer.
Prosecution witnesses also testified that Edwards was angling the Democratic front runners in 2008, both Obama and Clinton, for a possible VP position or Attorney General appointment which is why he kept the cover-up ongoing even after he dropped out of the Presidential race.
After Baron died of cancer in October, 2008, Edwards wooed additional funding from a love-struck Mellon, which, as multiple witnesses testified, he received.
John Edwards’ defense will begin presenting its case on Monday.
Beltway insiders are saying Edwards WON’T take the stand in his own defense — especially not after prosecutors showed the most damning testimony of all – John Edwards himself.
