By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
A federal grand jury charged two-time presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday with soliciting and covering up the secret spending of more than $925,000 to hide his mistress and their baby during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.
Former U.S. senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem, N.C., to charges he concealed nearly $1 million in secret campaign donations to hide an extramarital affair and to protect and advance his 2008 presidential candidacy.
The White House is doing its best to run away from Rod R. Blagojevich and the pay-to-play scandal surrounding the Senate seat once held by President Obama as the disgraced former governor tries to drag Mr. Obama into his federal corruption trial in Illinois.
"No one would have known or should have known or could have been expected to know that these payments would be treated or should be considered as campaign contributions and there is no way that Senator Edwards knew that fact either," Mr. Craig said in a statement.
attorney Gregory Craig issued a brief statement in advance of the hearing.
