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Trial of a derailed career

John Edwards faces a federal jury, beginning Monday, in a case that reopens his story of personal disgrace.

The New York Times

April 21, 2012 at 11:45PM

Former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards arrives outside federal court following a lunch break in Greensboro, N.C., April 12, 2012, during jury selection in his criminal trial on alleged campaign finance violations. (Associated Press - Ap/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - John Edwards, whose personal life and political career have publicly fallen apart over the last five years, will face a federal jury on Monday in the state that sent him to the Senate and twice rallied around his quest for the presidency.

He stands accused of misusing campaign money to hide an affair with a former campaign videographer, and the child they conceived, as he made his run for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.

The trial in Greensboro, which Judge Catherine C. Eagles of Federal District Court expects to take six weeks, promises to continue the long story of Edwards' derailed career and scarred personal life.

But for the government, the case goes beyond the messiness of an affair that Edwards repeatedly denied, even as his wife, Elizabeth, was suffering from the cancer that eventually took her life in 2010.

Prosecutors have been unyielding in their pursuit of a case that they say represents a clear and flagrant misuse of $925,000 that they argue was used to try to influence the outcome of the election. If he is convicted on all six counts, Edwards, 58, faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

Conspiracy or a gift?

The government's case is simple: Edwards knowingly accepted the money from two wealthy donors and used it to keep information from the public that would have surely torpedoed his presidential campaign. Thus, the money was a campaign contribution and its use a conspiracy.

Edwards' legal team rejects that argument: The money was a gift from two friends and was intended to help a candidate they believed in deal with a personal problem. Edwards, his lawyers say, was not aware of the donations.

They will try to characterize the case as being politically motivated. It began under the tenure of George Holding, a Republican appointee of President George W. Bush who stayed on as a U.S. attorney under the Obama administration to bring the case to trial.

'Like attacking ... McGovern'

Holding had long been politically hostile to Edwards, the defense lawyers say, and hoped the case would help his political ambitions. Holding retired last year, a month after securing Edwards' indictments, and then announced he was running for Congress in 2012.

But some political strategists dismiss the defense's theory as mere posturing.

"Attacking John Edwards for the Republicans would be like attacking George McGovern," said Donnie Fowler, a technology and political consultant who has worked for seven presidential candidates and was a senior adviser to President Obama.

Still, students of campaign finance will look to the trial for new interpretations of how money from political action committees and other campaign-related donations can be spent, especially as the growing influence of super PACs is playing out in the 2012 presidential election.

Of course, it will be hard for both sides to keep the focus on the intricacies of campaign finance law when the central story of the trial hangs on a dying wife, an illicit affair and an attempted cover-up. "It's very hard to look at this in a vacuum," said Marcellus McRae, a former federal prosecutor. "Because of all these other optics about John Edwards, the jury may be moved to return a verdict that is a general no-confidence vote against him, as opposed to a narrow, legal-focused interpretation of what the law is."