John Edwards' defense team concluded it had poked enough holes in the prosecution's case that it didn't need to call Edwards or Rielle Hunter to the stand. NBC's Lisa Myers reports from Greensboro, N.C.
By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com
Updated at 2:20 p.m. ET: Lawyers for former Sen. John Edwards rested their case in his campaign finance corruption trial Wednesday morning without calling Edwards or his onetime mistress, Rielle Hunter.
| Lisa Myers, Stacey Klein and Michael Austin of NBC News and Ben Edwards of NBC station WCNC of Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook. |
Crowds had lined up two hours before court opened in Greensboro, N.C., anticipating they might get an opportunity to hear from the principal players after defense lawyers told U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles late Tuesday that they might call Edwards, Hunter and Edwards' daughter Cate Edwards Upham to the stand on Wednesday.
Jurors were dismissed for the day, but the trial isn't over yet: The prosecution now has the opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses, followed by closing arguments from both sides.?
It was?a subdued ending to the defense phase of Edwards' trial on six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from two wealthy supporters at a time when federal election law limited individual political contributions to $2,300 for the election cycle.?The decision surprised spectators and legal analysts alike, many of whom had predicted that Upham would certainly testify and that Edwards was likely to.
"Remember, the defense told this jury John Edwards is not afraid of the truth, and I think that was foretelling that he will take the stand," said Kieran Shanahan, a former federal prosecutor who is closely watching the trial.
Abbe Lowell, Edwards' lead attorney, rested after Eagles denied another attempt by the defense to introduce evidence that Donald McGahn, a member of the Federal Election Commission, disagrees with the government's theory that the payments for Hunter constituted illegal campaign contributions.
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Lowell tried to introduce an audiotape of McGahn saying at a July 2011 FEC meeting that, even assuming everything the government claims is true, the payments were contributions that should have been reported.
The audio is available here from the FEC's website.
But Eagles said, "I don't think the opinions of others ... are particularly helpful to this jury" ? essentially the same reasoning she gave last week in ruling out testimony from former FEC members who had been expected to say they also thought the contributions were legal.
The jury was left with the final testimony of Jim Walsh, a former FBI agent hired by the defense who traced the money trail.
Walsh testified Tuesday that Edwards' friend Fred Baron, finance director for his presidential campaign, gave Hunter monthly payments totaling $74,000 in the second half of 2008 ? well after the campaign had ended and some of it even after Edwards publicly admitted the affair.
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has faced public and private challenges throughout his life and career.
"The only logical reason for making these payments at the time they were made was exactly what John Edwards has been saying: 'I'm trying to protect my wife from finding out that I'm the father of Rielle Hunter's baby,'" Shanahan said.
Another major point of the defense argument is that Edwards didn't know what the money from Baron and billionaire oil heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon was being used for, a contention that was supported Tuesday by John Moylan, who worked in both of Edwards' presidential campaigns.
Moylan testified that Edwards was shocked to learn in August 2008 ? several months after the fact ? that Mellon had been paying to help support Hunter and keep her from the public eye. The money was given through checks falsely labeled as furniture purchases through Andrew Young, who was once a top aide to Edwards and is now his chief accuser.
Referring to Young as "that damn Andrew," Edwards told Mellon, "Bunny, you should not be sending money to anyone," Moylan testified.
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