Truthseeker420
Gold Member
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlkPMdoTVLw]John Edwards - Reno Town Hall: Two Americas - YouTube[/ame]
I think it is worth mentioning that the Bush and Clinton families are friends, George Holding was asked to stay on with the Obama administration and the DNC convention was awarded to North Carolina.
Wait -- who is George Holding? And why should we care?
After winning a recent primary, Holding is likely the next congressman in the 13th District of North Carolina. He initiated the prosecution against Edwards while he was a U.S. Attorney. But he didn't argue the case in court. Instead, after receiving a year's worth of headlines (and Republican praise) for charging Edwards, Holding resigned from the case to run for Congress.
Maybe Holding understood the weakness of the case, which rested upon Edwards' failure to report the money billionaire heiress Bunny Mellon and another wealthy donor gave to him to help hide his mistress. The problem is that if Edwards had reported contributions and then used them for personal expenses, he would have been guilty of a crime, since the Federal Election Commission bars spending official campaign funds on personal expenses. Therefore, according to Holding, Edwards was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't.
That's not very good legal reasoning on which to rest a case -- especially a case unlike any other that had been successfully tried. And since Holding had access to all the available evidence and knew that no witness and no recordings would suggest that Edwards knew he was breaking the law, it is difficult to see how Holding thought he might win, other than hoping that jurors disliked Edwards so much they would convict him.
Or maybe Holding wasn't all that concerned with the legal reasoning. Perhaps he realized that, win or lose, he'd already gotten enough mileage from the case to realize his political ambitions. By the time he indicted Edwards, the well-connected Holding knew that the newly Republican state legislature had drawn a safe district he could win, if only he could get out of the primary. And what better way to appeal to Republican diehards than prosecuting the smarmy, liberal trial lawyer John Edwards? Holding certainly received his reward last month when he won his congressional primary.
The public generally associates politicians with the pursuit of ambition and power. Too often, investigators act from similar motives. Law enforcement officials seek to justify long, expensive investigations into high-profile targets by stretching the law to win convictions and mount the biggest scalps on their walls.
Edwards trial a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money - CNN.com
I think it is worth mentioning that the Bush and Clinton families are friends, George Holding was asked to stay on with the Obama administration and the DNC convention was awarded to North Carolina.