Prosecution: Edwards tried to hide affair until campaign ended

The defense in John Edwards' trial rested Wednesday without calling any of the major players to testify. NBC's Lisa Myers reports from Greensboro, N.C.

By Lisa Myers, NBC News, and M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com

John Edwards "clearly knew the law and decided to violate it in order to salvage his campaign," prosecutors said Thursday in their closing arguments to the jury that will decide whether the former Democratic presidential candidate manipulated the campaign finance system to hide his affair with Rielle Hunter.

Lisa Myers of NBC News and Ben Thompson 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.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon accused Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina and the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, of cynically seeking to "hide Hunter and keep her quiet" until the 2008 presidential election was over "and his wife (had) passed away."

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Elizabeth Edwards died of cancer in December 2010.?

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The jury is expected to begin deliberations Friday, after prosecutors answer the defense's closing arguments Thursday afternoon. Edwards is charged in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., with six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in unreported campaign donations from two wealthy supporters at a time when election law limited individual donations to a candidate to $2,300.

Higdon traced the cover-up to early 2006, 10 months before Edwards announced his presidential campaign in North Carolina in December 2006. Both Hunter, a videographer for the campaign, and Elizabeth Edwards were in the audience that day, but the "seeds of destruction" were sewn earlier that year when John Edwards and his top aide, Andrew Young, hatched plans to make sure "the public would never find out" about the affair, he said.

Higdon said that for the next two years, Edwards manipulated Young ? the prosecution's star witness ? to extract money from billionaire heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and Fred Baron, the campaign's finance director, to keep Hunter out of sight as he ran for the White House.

He accused Edwards of having abandoned his own campaign rhetoric, which sought to bridge what he called "the two Americas" ? the rich and the poor ? saying Edwards "had no problem separating the two Americas when it served his purpose."

Abbe Lowell began the defense's closing arguments by contending that the government was seeking to criminalize misbehavior in a marriage, saying, "If you want to prosecute affairs, we need to build more courthouses and hire more prosecutors."

The defense argues that Edwards didn't know what the contributions were intended for and that because they were used to conceal the affair with Hunter ? not to pay for election expenses ? they didn't constitute campaign contributions subject to regulation under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971(.pdf).

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has faced public and private challenges throughout his life and career.

Lowell attacked Young as an embittered ex-admirer of Edwards out to make a quick buck by peddling a book about the affair. Young also pocketed most of the money the government claims was given to hide Hunter, he said, using some of it to build a $1.6 million home for himself and his family.

"You'd run out of paper in your notebooks" writing down all the times Young lied, Lowell said.

But Higdon argued that "Andrew Young is not the master manipulator the defense would have you believe."

He said there was "overwhelming evidence" that Edwards "knew very well what was going on," citing telephone records that showed 63 calls to Young and others ? some of them longer than an hour ? during a time when Hunter was stashed away in California.

The complex scheme was actually intended to financially advance the presidential campaign, Higdon said, contending that "there are simpler ways to hide an affair from your wife" than laundering money disguised as furniture purchases through third parties.

The statements went to the heart of the precedent-setting case the prosecution is trying to make: that a phrase in the 1971 election law means more than it says on its face.

The law declares that contributions are illegal if they are made "for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office."

The most important word is "the." Edwards' lawyers say it means just that ? that the jury must find that Edwards conspired to accept illegal contributions solely to help his presidential election campaign.

The government, by contrast, argues that it can be read to mean "a purpose," contending that the contributions were illegal if Edwards used the money not just to influence the election but also for other purposes, such as sparing his wife the humiliation of the affair.

The instructions that U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles gives the jury Thursday afternoon will likely examine that point in detail. She indicated Wednesday afternoon that she would instruct jurors that the government doesn't have to prove that the payments from Mellon and Baron were for the "sole benefit" of influencing primary elections in January 2008.

But she also indicated that she would tell them that a guilty verdict should be based on something more than just a side benefit to the Edwards campaign. Specifically, Eagles suggested that if jurors find that the primary purpose of the payments was to address a personal matter, the money can't be considered an unlawful contribution.

"No jury has ever been asked to do this before ? assess money to cover up an affair to see whether it's a campaign violation," said Hampton Dellinger, a legal analyst for NBC News and msnbc.com. "So we're in uncharted territory."

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