John Edwards asked aide ‘to claim paternity for his love to child to spare his dying wife’

Giving testimony on the second day of the trial at the US District Court in
Greensboro, North Carolina, Mr Young told of the moment Edwards phoned him
as he shopped with his wife for a turtle aquarium in a pet shop and asked
him to claim paternity of Miss Hunter’s baby.

“He started almost what was like a campaign stump speech,” Mr Young said.
“Knowing him as long as I did I knew something was coming. “He talked about
how this was bigger than all of us. He talked about how the election started
in a couple of weeks.

“He didn’t want Mrs Edwards to die with his face on the front page of the
newspapers.”

Mr Young said Edwards closed by saying the press would “understand” if he said
there had been an affair between two colleagues – Miss Hunter had worked on
the campaign at the start of her relationship with the candidate.

“He said: ‘Andrew, they don’t give a **** about you, they want me.'”

Mr Young said he and his wife had strong reservations about the plan, but
agreed to go along with it because their fortunes were so tied to Edwards’
political ambitions.

In particular, he said, he hoped if Edwards became president he would reward
him by sending him to work in foreign embassies so his children would see
the world.

“By this point we were in very deep,” he said. “We had been taking care,
hiding, his mistress and lying a great deal to people about this.”

“There was ambition too, I can’t deny that. Being friends with the most
powerful person on Earth, there’s a lot of benefits that go along with that,
I can’t deny that’s what we were working for.”

Edwards, 58, is charged with breaking election laws by failing to declare cash
which the prosecution claim was spent on hiding the affair and love child in
order to protect the candidate’s image as

a family man.

Mr Young obtained the money and also helped Edwards keep the affair from his
wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of breast cancer, by providing him with a
secret mobile called the “Batphone” and repeatedly lying about the
relationship.

Edwards denies the charges and the trial continues.

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