John Edwards‘ political action committee paid his mistress $14,000 after she stopped working for it to obtain 100 hours of unused videotape shot for his unsuccessful presidential campaign, an associate told The Associated Press on Thursday. She already had been paid $100,000 for the programs.
The explanation — which Edwards’ advisers declined to discuss on the record — is the first effort to justify the payment in April 2007 to the woman, Rielle Hunter. That payment came months before Edwards’ chief fundraiser quietly began sending money himself to the pregnant woman.
Edwards last week acknowledged he had an affair with Hunter in 2006. The former Democratic presidential contender and senator from North Carolina has denied any knowledge of those payments to Hunter from Fred Baron, Edwards’ national finance chairman and a wealthy Dallas-based trial attorney. Baron also has described his payments to Hunter as a private transaction.
But the $14,000 payment to Hunter is significant because its source was Edwards’ OneAmerica political action committee, whose expenditures are governed by U.S. election laws. Willfully converting money from a political action committee for personal use would have been a federal criminal violation.
An associate of Edwards, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the $14,000 was paid to Hunter only after she relinquished about 100 hours of cutting-room floor videotape excerpts that were not part of four short Web videos she had produced in 2006 while working for Midline Groove Ltd.