Monday, April 23, 2012

Opening Arguments Begin in Former Presidential Candidate Trial

Story first appeared in USA Today.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the trial of a former presidential candidate were poised to begin making their case to jurors on whether the man violated federal campaign finance laws.

Opening arguments were to begin Monday in Greensboro, N.C.

The defendant pleaded not guilty to six criminal counts related to nearly $1 million in secret payments from two wealthy supporters. Much of the money was used to hide the then-married politician's pregnant mistress during his 2008 White House campaign.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that he masterminded a conspiracy to conceal his affair. The defense lawyers contend the payments were gifts from friends intent on keeping the candidate's wife from finding out about the mistress and her baby. The defendant's wife died in December 2010 after battling cancer.

A U.S. District Court Judges, who was appointed in 2010 by the President, will preside. She said she expects the proceedings to last about six weeks.

A key issue will be whether the defendant knew about the payments made on his behalf by his national campaign finance chairman, the late Texas lawyer, and a now-101-year-old heiress and socialite who was a campaign donor. Each had already given the campaign the maximum $2,300 individual contribution allowed by federal law.

The defendant denies having known about the money, which paid for private jets, luxury hotels and medical care for the mistress. Prosecutors will seek to prove he sought and directed the payments to cover up his affair, protect his public image as a "family man" and keep his presidential hopes viable.

The well-known Washington lawyer who is representing him, has said that even had his client known about the secret payments, his actions wouldn't amount to a crime under federal law. The government's case relies on flawed legal reasoning, that the grand jury process was tainted and that the Republican federal prosecutor who led the investigation was motivated by partisanship.

The defense lawyer has derided what he calls the government's "crazy" interpretation of federal law whereby money that was never handled by the candidate nor deposited in a campaign account is being defined as campaign contributions.

Much of the money at issue was funneled to a former campaign aide once so close to the defendant that he initially claimed paternity of his boss's illegitimate child. The aide and his wife invited the pregnant mistress to live in their home near Chapel Hill and later embarked with her on a cross-country odyssey as they sought to elude tabloid reporters trying to expose the candidate's extramarital affair.

The campaign aid later fell out with the defendant and wrote an unflattering tell-all book, The Politician. The aid and the mistress recently ended a two-year legal battle over ownership of a sex tape the mistress recorded with the defendant during the campaign, agreeing to a settlement that dictates that copies of the video will be destroyed.

The aide is expected to be a witness for the prosecution, while the defense is likely to call the mistress to testify. Two of the lawyers who represented the mistress in her civil suit against the former aide joined the defendant's legal team last month. After years of adamant public denials, the defendant acknowledged paternity of the mistress' daughter in 2010. The girl, now 4, lives with her mother in Charlotte.

It has not yet been decided whether the defendant, a former trial lawyer once renowned for his ability to charm jurors, will testify in his own defense.


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