John Edwards Indicted

AP: A federal grand jury has indicted two-time presidential candidate John Edwards over massive sums of money spent to keep his mistress in hiding during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

The case of USA v. Johnny Reid Edwards contains six counts, including conspiracy, four counts of illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements. The indictment was returned in the Middle District of North Carolina Friday.

So, here's the thing. He's a total idiot for running for the Democratic nomination at such a crucial moment in our political times with this HUGE skeleton in his closet. He's a scumbag for cheating on his cancer stricken wife and betraying his family. But is he guilty of what he is accused of?

To my knowledge, and this theory is purely speculative since I don't have a dog in this race and therefore haven't really researched the minutia, the money that was used to hide Edwards' affair did not come from official campaign contributions. From what I understand, supporters of Edwards ponied up the dough to try and keep the affair quiet. So how far can the definition of "campaign contributions" be stretched?

It's just a question - I don't care either way whether he's found guilty or not, so long as the verdict is attained appropriately, and not through some jumping of hoops to shoehorn the actions taken into what constitutes a campaign contribution because it's such a high profile case.

On a side note, it's interesting how something like this can kill a political career for Edwards, but a guy like Newt Gingrich can do it twice, decide to run for President, and no one really bats an eye. But I guess he was just a scumbag out in the open and didn't try to hide it, so there's that.