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John Edwards Will Defend Charges on Legal Definition, Not Behavioral Grounds
Two-time Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards appears to plan to mount a defense against a criminal indictment handed down this week, based not on the facts of his behavior but on legal definitions and interpretations. Not sure what else I expected from a former trial lawyer who dashed the hopes and beliefs of his once-ardent supporters (including yours truly) by having an extramarital affair and an out-of-wedlock child while his wife suffered through cancer.
According to press reports, Edwards' defense team will not argue that the Senator didn't have the affair or didn't have the child. That's good; he's already admitted that he did. They will try to defend him against criminal charges on the basis that his conduct didn't break any Federal Election Commission rules or laws governing campaign finances.
A reading of the indictment itself makes it hard for me -- a law-trained layman -- to see how his attorneys can respond to the charges in the way they are suggesting he will. While I, like many other political observers, wonder at the Justice Department's decision to crack down on Edwards while leaving the cases of guys like Tom DeLay and John Ensign on the table (see the CREW statement, for example), their priorities don't change factual or legal observations. It wouldn't surprise me if the thinking inside the Obama administration is to pursue such a public course of action against a once-powerful Democrat as a way of appearing to be interested in equal opportunity indictments.
I feel sad for Edwards, as I do for Ensign and his family as well. This kind of familial upheaval is always so destructive in so many hidden ways in addition to the public humiliation and loss of reputation that inevitably and justifiably accompanies it. And I find it strange and depressing that most of the public officials who get caught in sex scandals are those who are loudest in proclaiming their "family values" stances on issues. Methinks they do protest too much.
