Edwardses Announce Split

Edwardses announce split as book shocks
Ex-aide gives detailed account on affair, child, coverup.

By Jim Morrill
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010

A presidential campaign-turned soap opera turned a new chapter Wednesday as John Edwards and his wife announced their separation, and a new book purports to explain how Edwards covered up his steamy affair and the paternity that resulted.

In a statement, Edwards called his separation from Elizabeth an "extraordinarily sad moment." He said he loves his children more than anything and still cares deeply about his wife of 32 years.

A spokeswoman said Elizabeth Edwards "is moving on with her life and wants to put this difficult chapter behind her." Her sister, Nancy Anania, told People magazine that Elizabeth said, "I've had it. I can't do this. I want my life back."

The separation comes less than a week after North Carolina's former Democratic U.S. senator acknowledged that he had fathered a daughter with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. She and her 2-year-old daughter are living in Charlotte in a rented home near Freedom Park.

Two weeks ago, the Edwardses were the subject of a scathing portrait in the book "Game Change," an account of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Now in another book called "The Politician," former aide Andrew Young recounts his long association with Edwards and how it led Young to claim to be Frances Quinn Hunter's father. He tells how he and his wife and their children went on the run with Hunter, and how two of Edwards' wealthy benefactors covered expenses on their months-long odyssey.

He also describes how a Monroe decorator named Bryan Huffman helped him use "Bunny Money" - from wealthy heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon - to surreptitiously support Hunter.

Young is scheduled to kick off a round of interviews Friday night with an appearance on ABC's "20-20." The Observer obtained a copy of the book Wednesday.

Young describes himself as a dutiful aide who would even pick Edwards up at the airport with a cooler of Diet Cokes, a take-out meal and "a chilled glass of Chardonnay."

He writes what others have reported: that Edwards and Hunter first met in early 2006 at a Park Avenue hotel in Manhattan. He says Hunter told him later that Edwards gave her a key card to his room.

That fall, he says, he got a call from the babysitter watching Edwards' two young children while Elizabeth Edwards was away. She asked Young to explain the hotel key card she'd found. He said he got "a sinking feeling," and remembered nights on the campaign trail when Edwards "would go out for 'jogs' at two o'clock in the morning."

Hunter became Edwards' videographer and accompanied him to Africa in 2006. "Later, he and Rielle would tell me that during this trip, when they spent every night together, he said 'I love you' to her for the first time," Young wrote.

According to Young, Edwards confided that although he still loved his wife, he was unhappy in his marriage.

"He believed his wife was more popular with many voters than he was and that if he left her, he might as well forget ever being president," Young wrote. "I cringed when he said this."

He wrote that Hunter once spent the night at Edwards' home when his wife was out of town. In the morning, after fixing breakfast for his kids and dropping them off at school, Edwards came home, and he and Hunter slept together, Young wrote.

Young went on to cover for Edwards, even when Elizabeth Edwards grew suspicious. He wrote that after his wife confronted him in late 2006, Edwards admitted to a one-time fling but told her Hunter was Young's mistress.

In spring 2007, Hunter found out she was pregnant. Young says Edwards wanted her to have an abortion. After the National Enquirer began looking for her, she ended up moving near Edwards' home in Chapel Hill.

Young says they used Mellon's "Bunny Money" to get Hunter a $28,000 BMW and a $2,900-a-month home to rent.

"Bunny's checks, written for many hundreds of thousands of dollars, were made as payments to her decorator, Bryan Huffman, so that she wouldn't have to offer an explanation to the professionals who handled her accounts," Young wrote.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether Edwards misused campaign funds.

Young wrote that the gifts were "entirely proper, and not subject to campaign finance laws." He said Mellon did not know the money was being used, in part, for Hunter. She would send the checks to Huffman, Young wrote, "hidden in boxes of chocolate."

Huffman could not be reached.

Edwards, then about to launch his second White House campaign, asked Young to claim to be the father of Hunter's child. He told Young that Fred Baron, a wealthy Texas lawyer and supporter, would pay, according to Young.

Young talked it over with his wife Cheri.

"Exhausted and under intense pressure to make a decision, we finally agreed that even if we followed through on the senator's plan' no one who knew us would actually believe the story he wanted everyone to tell, so we took the plunge," he wrote.

From there, they went on a months-long odyssey with their kids and Hunter that took them to Florida, Colorado and finally California, where they all leased a Santa Barbara house for $20,000 a month.

The home, like their other expenses, was covered by Edwards' biggest benefactors.

Edwards described Baron as "the short-term solution" and Mellon as "the long-term solution" to their financial needs, according to Young.

In one of the most explosive passages, Young says that after he and his family and Hunter finally went their separate ways, he found a video that showed Edwards in a sexual encounter with "a naked pregnant woman photographed from the navel down." She appeared to be holding the camera.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for Elizabeth Edwards said the book "contains many falsehoods and exaggerations."

"She will not engage in a dialogue on each of the false charges," the spokesperson said. "She believed Andrew Young to be the father of this child until her husband confessed his paternity to her this past summer. She will have nothing further to say."

Young acknowledges his own mistakes. He also knows people will criticize him for covering up the affair and then turning on his old employer by writing a book.

"My critics will say I'm writing this book for money," he wrote. "They are partly correct ... I have serious responsibilities I can meet by publishing my story.

"But I also have every right after three years of silence to tell my story and clear up the many lies that have been told by me and John Edwards."

Mandy Locke and Rob Christensen of The News & Observer, and the Associated Press contributed to this story.