By Emily Miller The Washington Times
EXCERPTS:
A federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment today against John Edwards, the former senator and two-time presidential candidate. The government charges vindicate the story that the National Enquirer broke four and a half years ago: that Mr. Edwards was having an affair with Rielle Hunter and she was pregnant.
Executive Editor Barry Levine oversaw the Enquirer’s team of reporters and photographers who relentlessly pursued the story that turned out to be a blockbuster. “It’s been a long road and today’s indictment is vindication that this little supermarket tabloid exposed this massive cover-up,” Mr. Levine told The Washington Times. “We did our job. We got the facts right on this from the get-go. It’s amazing and a shame that the mainstream media couldn’t have followed our lead and pursued the story.”
The six counts against Mr. Edwards include four counts of accepting illegal campaign contributions from two donors in 2007 and 2008, one count of concealing those illegal donations from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and one count of conspiracy to violate the federal campaign finance laws and making false statements to the FEC. According to the indictment, the payments were used to facilitate Mr. Edwards‘ affair, and to conceal it and the resulting pregnancy from the public.
snip
Reporters on the campaign bus with the candidate did not purse the story, but the Enquirer kept on it throughout 2008. Mr. Levine said that during that period, he was “just flabbergasted” that no one else followed up. “Here was a guy running for president who was betraying his cancer-stricken wife and his own campaign workers. If the mainstream media didn’t want to believe us, investigate yourselves. We literally drew a map to the people involved and no one wanted to go down that road.”
In July, the tabloid caught Mr. Edwards holding his baby daughter in a hotel room at the Beverly Hills Hilton. A month later, he confessed to ABC that he had a brief out-of-wedlock affair, claiming it occurred when his wife Elizabeth was in remission from cancer. He continued to deny that the baby was his, letting his former aide Mr. Young falsely claim paternity.
The paper was the first to report that campaign contributor Fred Baron was funneling money to hide Miss Hunter and her baby daughter from the press. “He moved her to a giant mansion in California with Andrew Young and his wife,” Mr. Levine explained. “Then moved her to a second mansion by the ocean. Our sources were saying at the time that this was a massive cover-up of hundreds of thousands, if not million of dollars.”
snip
In the end, however, the self-appointed media elite who run the Pulitzer committee did not give the paper even a mention in the prizes. The previous year, The New York Times won for its work exposing the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, which did not end in criminal charges - instead he got his own show on CNN. “It still stings that the Pulitzer committee didn’t feel we were worthy of some type of acknowledgement, event a mention or a runner up of the work we did,” Mr. Levine said.
EXCERPTS:
A federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment today against John Edwards, the former senator and two-time presidential candidate. The government charges vindicate the story that the National Enquirer broke four and a half years ago: that Mr. Edwards was having an affair with Rielle Hunter and she was pregnant.
Executive Editor Barry Levine oversaw the Enquirer’s team of reporters and photographers who relentlessly pursued the story that turned out to be a blockbuster. “It’s been a long road and today’s indictment is vindication that this little supermarket tabloid exposed this massive cover-up,” Mr. Levine told The Washington Times. “We did our job. We got the facts right on this from the get-go. It’s amazing and a shame that the mainstream media couldn’t have followed our lead and pursued the story.”
The six counts against Mr. Edwards include four counts of accepting illegal campaign contributions from two donors in 2007 and 2008, one count of concealing those illegal donations from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and one count of conspiracy to violate the federal campaign finance laws and making false statements to the FEC. According to the indictment, the payments were used to facilitate Mr. Edwards‘ affair, and to conceal it and the resulting pregnancy from the public.
snip
Reporters on the campaign bus with the candidate did not purse the story, but the Enquirer kept on it throughout 2008. Mr. Levine said that during that period, he was “just flabbergasted” that no one else followed up. “Here was a guy running for president who was betraying his cancer-stricken wife and his own campaign workers. If the mainstream media didn’t want to believe us, investigate yourselves. We literally drew a map to the people involved and no one wanted to go down that road.”
In July, the tabloid caught Mr. Edwards holding his baby daughter in a hotel room at the Beverly Hills Hilton. A month later, he confessed to ABC that he had a brief out-of-wedlock affair, claiming it occurred when his wife Elizabeth was in remission from cancer. He continued to deny that the baby was his, letting his former aide Mr. Young falsely claim paternity.
The paper was the first to report that campaign contributor Fred Baron was funneling money to hide Miss Hunter and her baby daughter from the press. “He moved her to a giant mansion in California with Andrew Young and his wife,” Mr. Levine explained. “Then moved her to a second mansion by the ocean. Our sources were saying at the time that this was a massive cover-up of hundreds of thousands, if not million of dollars.”
snip
In the end, however, the self-appointed media elite who run the Pulitzer committee did not give the paper even a mention in the prizes. The previous year, The New York Times won for its work exposing the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, which did not end in criminal charges - instead he got his own show on CNN. “It still stings that the Pulitzer committee didn’t feel we were worthy of some type of acknowledgement, event a mention or a runner up of the work we did,” Mr. Levine said.
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