Americans have heard the story before: A lurid tale of a presidential candidate accused of arranging hush-money payments to conceal an alleged affair.
But if former President Donald Trump is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with a pre-election payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, the case of another politician – two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards – offers clues to the defense Trump is likely to mount.
More than a decade ago, Edwards beat charges that he had broken federal campaign finance laws as part of an elaborate scheme that involved two of his donors supplying nearly $1 million in secret payments to hide his pregnant mistress during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Edwards’ lawyers contended at trial – as Trump’s legal team now argues – that the payments did not violate federal election law because they were aimed at shielding his family from pain and embarrassment rather than trying to conceal an extramarital affair from voters to further his political ambitions.
“It’s the most closely available precedent for this situation, and that’s not a good track record for someone looking to bring a similar case,” said Steven Friedland, an Elon University law professor who attended much of Edwards’ six-week federal trial in Greensboro, North Carolina in 2012.
It’s not clear what charges, if any, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and the grand jury will pursue, stemming from a $130,000 payment made to Daniels just days before the 2016 general election. And legal experts say tying a state criminal charge to federal election law appears to be untested.
But Trump’s allies have begun to draw parallels to Edwards’ case, which resulted in a high-profile loss for the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Division, then headed by Jack Smith. (Smith now serves as the special counsel…
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