FORMER US senator and presidential contender John Edwards knows a thing or two about disgrace.
He has endured the exposure of his affair while his wife was fighting breast cancer. Then came the revelation that he had fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, and had persuaded a close aide to claim paternity to hide it from his family and the press.
That aide, Andrew Young, went on to write a best-selling book, The Politician, which laid bare Edwards's multiple duplicities, as well as offering a detailed description of a sex tape the former North Carolina senator made with Hunter.
Now Mr Edwards is facing further embarrassment, and possibly criminal charges, over whether he spent government money to hide Ms Hunter from the public eye.
Mr Edwards was summoned to answer questions yesterday for a sworn deposition in a lawsuit by Ms Hunter to recover the tape from Mr Young, who denies he still has any copies of it. His lawyers planned to ask the former North Carolina senator about claims that he used federal campaign funds to hide Ms Hunter.
“I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly,” Mr Edwards said last year. “However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true.”
Ms Hunter, who appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show last month, says the tape is an invasion of privacy. She told Winfrey that Mr Edwards had led a “life of integrity”. She also described him as being “in extreme conflict” about running for president, but said he was “addicted to campaigning”. – (Guardian service)