John Edwards Scandal, Affair and Cover-up
Over 150 DBKP articles on the John Edwards’ Love Child Scandal: John Edwards Love Child Scandal Library of DBKP Stories

HOW THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER PURSUED THE STORY OF JOHN EDWARDS
THE AFFAIR, THE SCANDAL and THE COVER-UP FOR 27 MONTHS

Should the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer Prize for its multi-year investigation of the John Edwards affair, scandal and cover-up? That’s been the question that’s been asked lately: in some cases, at the same Mainstream Media papers which participated in the news blackout of the Enquirer’s Edwards’ coverage.

Edwards, who had been Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, was one of the front-runners at the time the Enquirer broke the second installment of the story on December 18, 2007.

The Enquirer released a cornucopia of easily-verifiable information at that time: Rielle Hunter, a former Edwards campaign worker, was pregnant with what the Enquirer reported was Edwards’ love child; she had been moved to within five miles of the Edwards campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill, NC; Hunter was living an exclusive gated community, a few houses down the street from Edwards’ former Director of Finance, Andrew Young; and, she was driving around in a BMW registered to Young.

Although the Enquirer’s report contained unnamed sources who named Edwards as the father, there were certainly enough hard facts to make most people curious–unless you were a MSM reporter. Still, the Enquirer kept working the story in the face of a complete and utter cone of silence imposed by Big Media.

Although a few mid-size newspaper columnists wrote about Edwards after the Enquirer’s reporters cornered him leaving Hunter’s Beverly Hilton room on July 22, 2008, Big Media’s silence was finally broken on August 8, 2008, when Edwards ‘confessed’ to the nation on ABC’s Nightline.

But Edwards did not come clean; in fact, hours after the “confession”, he was ridiculed by DBKP[John Edwards Scandal: Edwards Continues Deception in Interview and John Edwards Scandal: Edwards Admits Affair, Lies, to ABC News].

In the latter article, we wrote, “In a coldly-calculated political move, John Edwards has now admitted that he had an affair, but did not father Rielle Hunter’s daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter.”

In the former:

“In a coldly-calculated political move, John Edwards has now admitted that he had an affair, but did not father Rielle Hunter’s daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter.”

A few short minutes after ABC announced that John Edwards admitted his affair with Rielle Hunter and was going to appear on Friday’s Nightline to talk about it, we wrote the words at the top of the page.

We also wrote then:

“The political calculus is: Edwards hopes that his admission of having an affair will allow the incident to blow over, allowing him to proceed with his political career.”

After reading Edwards’ statement, our immediate instincts were confirmed: John Edwards only came forward after he was cornered by the National Enquirer–which he repeatedly labeled “tabloid trash”–and a few in the traditional press were finally, after almost a year, beginning to take an interest. After watching Edwards’ Nightline appearance and examining the allegations he made in the interview, we’re not convinced–and we’re not the only ones.

How do I deceive thee? Let me count the ways.”

Was John Edwards the “99% honest” man on Friday? At DBKP, we noticed one falsehood almost immediately, which was confirmed the next day. John Edwards said that his affair with Rielle Hunter ended in 2006. He said it three times in his statement, so it must have been an important point.

It was–and is.

[NOTE: We later published two photos which proved Edwards was lying: John Edwards Scandal Photo: John and Elizabeth Edwards with Rielle Hunter Dec 30, 2006 – Exclusive DBKP Photo!. Unless, as one reader put it, "The Edwards' household had a very busy New Year's Eve."]

It allows Edwards to claim he is not the father of Frances Quinn Hunter. We weren’t the only ones who noticed that point–and others, as well.

How many times did Edwards prevaricate in his statement and interview? We believe that it happened three times–it’s likely there’s more when the whole truth finally comes out.

In an article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, David Perel confirmed what we wrote then.

Mr. Edwards had already shown us his willingness to lie in the face of overwhelming evidence. In July 2008, Mr. Edwards knew the Enquirer had him on video and he waited. Behind the scenes we sent him a message—deny the affair and we will release the video and prove you a liar. At the same time an ABC News investigative team pounded him.

When Mr. Edwards realized there was no way out, he tried to control the damage and decided to confess to the affair. He appeared on “Nightline” on Aug. 8, 2008, and admitted only to the affair, knowing the Enquirer had his meeting with Ms. Hunter on video. At points in the interview he offered ridiculous denials about paternity and the photo of him with his child.

It had taken 10 months for the Enquirer to prove Mr. Edwards affair, and once he confessed we knew it still wasn’t over. Paternity was the next issue. But again, Mr. Edwards would admit the truth only when it was absolutely necessary.

Edwards’ mendacity–and the Mainstream Media’s complicity–makes the number of pieces discussing the Pulitzer for the Enquirer somewhat surprising. Is this the mainstream press’ way of ‘doing penance’ for totally ignoring the story and helping cover it up until Edwards was no longer a factor?

We posed that question to Perel, who is the former editor in chief of the National Enquirer and directed its coverage of the John Edwards affair. Perel, now the head of RadarOnline, thought for a moment, then said, “I think it might be their way of saying, ‘That was a great little story.’

First, Newsweek named the Enquirer’s John Edwards story on its Decade’s Top Ten Lists of both Sex Scandals and Startling Scoops.

Then, Politics Daily’s Emily Miller wrote in Does the National Enquirer Deserve a Pulitzer for Breaking the John Edwards Scandal?:

The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid, but the time has come for the media elite to admit that it has an excellent investigative reporting team, which broke the biggest political scandal of 2009, the John Edwards affair.

While its own editor concedes that the paper would never be given a Pulitzer Prize — the jury is dominated by the newspaper establishment — I believe the time has come for us to recognize the Enquirer’s political investigative reporting.

Howard Kurtz even discussed the Pulitzer/Enquirer question in the Washington Post–a paper which refused to report a word of the scandal when Edwards was a presidential candidate or being considered for a high-level post in the Obama administration, most likely attorney general.

Not all of the Pulitzer talk is positive; New York’s Adam K. Raymond dismissed the idea.

One problem with The Enquirer’s dream of winning a Pulitzer, as Howard Kurtz notices, is that most of its significant reporting on the story happened in 2007 and 2008 and this year’s Pulitzers will honor work done in 2009. Another problem is that it’s The National Enquirer.

Addressing Raymond’s first point: the Enquirer continued its investigation into 2009–and is still pursuing elements of the Edwards story today. There was much Edwards news reported in 2009; particularly, the Enquirer released documents proving that Edwards was the father of Rielle Hunter’s daughter, something that Edwards himself confirmed just last week.

Perel had the following reaction on whether he thought the story was over in 2008.

“Over? Oh no, it’s not over. There’s still a grand jury out there. Although I’m not at the Enquirer anymore, they’re not done yet.”

In fact, it may turn out to be that the most lasting of the Enquirer’s contributions to the story–other than uncovering, committing resources and pursuing it in the first place–was that the Enquirer was the first publication that started asking questions about Edwards financing of his mistress with campaign funds. Those are items being considered by a North Carolina grand jury.

As to Raymond’s second point of “…it’s the National Enquirer”, that very question was posed to David Perel a few days ago.

“The results speak for themselves. We worked the story hard. We devoted considerable resources to it. A very good team was assembled for the Edwards investigation; Barry Levine, in New York, directed the team and we stayed on it for a long, long time.”

Reminded that he made the statement–in late July 2008–that “Our detractors don’t read the magazine. The ones who read it know we get it right.”

When asked if he still feels that way, he replied, “Yes. The people who criticize us the most don’t read us.” [Note: There's evidence that the National Enquirer gets sued considerably less than the New York Times.]

What’s ironic about Raymond’s remark that “It’s the National Enquirer”, was made at New York magazine. New York is the home of Game Change co-author John Heilemann, who is a contributing editor. Heilemann was one of the people who could have covered the Edwards scandal as it was occurring–but didn’t.

In Game Change, John Heilemann, stated that

Out of view, the Edwards campaign was in damage-control mode, going into overdrive to dissuade the mainstream media from picking up the story, denouncing it as tabloid trash. Their efforts at containing the fallout were remarkably successful. The Enquirer’s exposé gained zero traction in the traditional press and almost none in the blogosphere.

Heilemann contributed to that “zero traction in the traditional press” he later so profitably wrote about: nothing could be found where Heilemann had written on the scandal when Americans were looking for news of the affair in 2008 in New York’s archives.

Why did the National Enquirer chase the story when the rest of its media brethren stayed mum? Perel’s thoughts:

“When we confronted him (Edwards) with what we had, he went public, and told lies; blatant, brazen lies to the American public. And he was running for president.

“We knew what we had and we knew he was lying. He was willing to say anything to cover this up. At that point, we thought ‘he’s dangerous’.

“After that, we couldn’t let go of the story.”

Thank goodness that the Enquirer “couldn’t let go of the story,” for the rest of the Mainstream Media was doing its level best to ignore it.

Despite an incredible string of coincidences between John Edwards, Rielle Hunter and the Edwards’ campaign, nothing, it seemed, could excite the curiosity of the mainstream press.

We wrote about Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the co-authors of Game Change and their silence about Edwards when it would have made a difference and their loose lips–now that they can make a buck off their inside information–in Game-Changer: Why Did Reporters Keep Silent About Edwards?:

But, now that it no longer matters, neither reporter has a problem picking over the carcass of the story for publicity and profit. Halperin, speaking on Good Morning America, said:

In fact, in the case of John Edwards and some of the other stories we wrote about in the book, even though reporters had an inkling, even though a lot of insiders had inklings, a lot of that stuff stayed secret, didn’t impact the campaign.

What did Perel think about that statement?

“Well, as far as impact, I think it had a definite impact: basically, it knocked him out of the race.”

As Nixon later conceded about Watergate, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up…”

According to the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, Enquirer executive editor, Barry Levine, agreed.

Levine faulted the mainstream media’s handling of the story, saying that even after Edwards’s partial admission on ABC, news outlets “still didn’t dig into it to a great degree, the fact that he had fathered this child. The larger issue involving the love child was the cover-up.”

Would Perel do it again?

“Yes! Absolutely!”

Was the massive committing of manpower and resources worth it? Again, with no hesitation, he answered.

“Yes! Absolutely!”

One last question: It’s not polite to gloat–publicly anyway–but how much was it worth to be able to make John Edwards’ eat his “Tabloid trash” accusations?

“It was satisfying–very satisfying. He lied, we caught him and he still lied. He might be the attorney general today. So it was satisfying.”

Conventional press wisdom at the time not only had Edwards mentioned prominently as a candidate for the vice presidential slot on the Democrat ticket, as well as in the running for the Obama attorney general spot.

An attorney general who would’ve faked DNA testing, perhaps?

Some journalists asked me if the Enquirer had a DNA match of Mr. Edwards and the child. I never answered that question. But the possibility that we had obtained a DNA match may explain why Mr. Edwards never followed through with his plan—according to recent statements by his aide Mr. Young—to fake a DNA test. He knew the possibility of a real one proving his paternity would be produced.

As for the Pulitzer and the National Enquirer’s chances of receiving it–ahead of a Mainstream Media that also ignored ACORN, Van Jones, CliimateGate, as well as Edwards?

Here’s two points in the Enquirer’s favor:

1- If not the Enquirer, then who? Who in the Mainstream Media–an institution that has done more to ignore and hide unfavorable news to Democrat candidates than perhaps any other–is more deserving?

2- If you don’t investigate and report it, you can’t get a Pulitzer for it.

UPDATE: For the Big Journalism version of the story: Does the National Enquirer Deserve a Pulitzer for Taking Down John Edwards?

ALSO, readers might want to mark their calendars for this Friday. ABC’s 20/20 is going to present an hour-long interview with Andrew Young. You might even see something you’ve seen at DBKP on the special.

UPDATE #2–There’s been some talk of a sex tape floating around for since Andrew Young started first pitching his book idea. That’s when it began. Expect Young to get asked about this particular point on Friday night on ABC.

After all, sex sells TV shows. 20/20 is no exception. Gawker has some thoughts on this today: Sources: John Edwards Has a Sex Tape.

We reported this last fall, I believe. Is it likely? Sure, why not? Is it anything other than picking over a story for tid-bits? Sure. In the end, it’s nothing Edwards doesn’t deserve.

Now, if only there was a way the Mainstream Media could get what they deserve for blacking the story out for 10 months. Oh, I forgot.

They’ll all mostly tanking. Never mind.

by Mondo Frazier
images: DBKP file

style="border:none;vertical-align:middle;"/>