John Edwards (David McGlynn)
GREENSBORO, NC — A delusional John Edwards hoped Barack Obama would appoint him to the Supreme Court — all while hiding his pregnant mistress and their love child, a former aide testified yesterday.
After Edwards lost the Democratic Iowa caucuses in January 2008, he began aggressively lobbying presidential front-runner Obama for the plum, lifetime post.
“We talked about a more elaborate long-term goal of Mr. Edwards, which was to be a Supreme Court justice,” Edwards’ former senior economic adviser, Leo Hindery Jr., testified at Edwards’ federal corruption trial.
Edwards was also willing to take a spot as vice president or attorney general, said Hindery, who is now at New York-based private equity firm InterMedia Partners.
The prosecution then rested its case after two weeks — but not before throwing Edwards’ lies in his face one last time.
Government lawyers played 20 minutes of video footage of Edwards’ August 2008 interview with ABC News’ Bob Woodruff, where the disgraced senator insisted he wasn’t the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby and that he had no idea hisîdonors were paying to hide her.
He has since admitted being Hunter’s baby-daddy, and witnesses have testified he used campaign funds to hide that fact.
A tense Edwards closed his eyes as the jury watched him on the video profess his “deep and abiding love” for wife, Elizabeth, who battled cancer during the affair and died in December 2010.
He then looked away as the jury watched him deny paternity of baby Frances Quinn.
“Not true. Not true,” he says in the video when asked if he was the father — and then invited a paternity test, saying he “would love to see it happen.”
He also denied he was the man photographed holding his daughter at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in July 2008.
“I don’t know who that baby is,” he said in the video. “I have no idea what that picture is.”
In the interview, Edwards also denied knowing that a top donor, Fred Baron, was using funds to hide Edwards’ mistress and baby in a $3 million mansion in California.
“I have never asked anybody to pay a dime of money. Never been told that any money has been paid,” Edwards said in the interview.
But former aides Andrew Young, Jennifer Palmieri — a current White House spokeswoman — and Wendy Button testified that Edwards knew Baron was supporting Hunter.
Palmieri recalled a dramatic confrontation in an Iowa hotel in the fall of 2007 where Elizabeth accosted Baron and his wife, Lisa Blue, for flying Hunter to LA and taking her on a shopping spree.
Edwards was in the room for the argument — and didn’t say a word, Palmieri testified.
A key part of Edwards’ defense is his insistence that he didn’t know that donor money was supporting Hunter.
Prosecutors yesterday also showed the jury receipts from Baron’s efforts to hide Hunter — including luxury-hotel tabs, private-jet invoices, a $20,000-per-month house rental in Santa Barbara and a $325,000 wire transfer.
Still, Edwards appeared confident in his chances to beat the six federal charges of violating campaign-finance laws.
“That’s their case?” Edwards was overheard telling his defense team Wednesday after the prosecution team announced it planned to rest yesterday — without calling Hunter.
The defense will begin its case Monday.