The name’s Edwards, John Edwards.
The disgraced former presidential candidate was a cut-rate James Bond who used cloak-and-dagger techniques to stay in touch with his pregnant mistress and the aide charged with keeping her out of the public eye, newly released voicemails reveal.
He would call the pair using phones borrowed from friends and aides — and would even sneak in calls from TV-studio green rooms where he was waiting to be interviewed, the transcripts reveal.
“I have to go on live television in about 12 minutes, uh, so if there’s any way to call this number, uh, in the next few minutes, please do,” he said in one voicemail on New Year’s Eve 2007.
Edwards also worked out codes to let the duo know if his wife was in the room when he was talking.
“I’m gonna leave you this message just in case you get a call from me where I ask you what’s goin’ on. It’s the, the reason we’re calling is because Elizabeth’s standing there. So just be aware of that. Uh, if that’s, if I’m calling saying what happened, how did this happen, what’s goin’ on, then that’s because Elizabeth’s standing there with me,” he said in a December 2007 message to aide Andrew Young.
Mistress Rielle Hunter, meanwhile, was enjoying watching her lover’s longtime marriage to Elizabeth fall apart — cackling on one voicemail about the once-fairy-tale couple being caught on camera standing far apart.
The February 2008 message for Young, Edwards’ right-hand man — and now star witness against him — came after Edwards, then a lawyer, met with then-candidate Barack Obama.
“They have footage of it on ABC News ‘World News Tonight,’ Obama leaving the house shaking his hand, um, and Elizabeth, and, and Johnny and Elizabeth couldn’t be further apart from each other [laughter]. I mean, on either side, like, of the driveway. So, so yeah, interesting,” Hunter said.
The transcripts were among a massive amount of evidence released by the prosecutors handling Edwards’ campaign-finance-fraud trial yesterday, and included l handwritten notes from two of his biggest backers, who were offering advice on getting around restrictions on campaign contributions.
A note from one of them, Texas lawyer Fred Baron, to Young read, “Old Chinese saying — use cash, not credit cards!”
A letter from Edwards’ biggest booster, elderly heiress Bunny Mellon, included an invitation to help the former Democratic veep candidate work around “government restrictions” on campaign contributions.
In the note to Young, Mellon said she was “furious” about press reports mocking the well-coiffed candidate’s $400 barber bills. “I see jealousies coming from somewhere in this news report,” she wrote. “But it inspired me. From now on all hair cuts, etc. that are necessary important part of campaigns, please send the bills to me” via an intermediary in New York, Mellon wrote.
“It is a way to help our friends without government restrictions.”
Prosecutors say Edwards took full advantage of that offer — using hundreds of thousands of dollars of Mellon’s cash as hush money to keep Hunter quiet.
Young initially claimed he was the father of Hunter’s daughter, and took the child home with his wife — while they all traveled in style and lived high on the hog with cash from Edwards’ donors.
In court yesterday, Edwards’ lawyer, Abbe Lowell, suggested Young was using the money for himself, and got him to acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters went to build his North Carolina dream house — not to Hunter.
Lowell peppered Young, who was testifying for a fourth day, with questions about the money from Baron and Mellon that flowed into personal accounts controlled by Young and his wife.
The once-loyal staffer conceded that a sizable chunk of the $933,000 meant to buy Hunter’s silence also paid for a new pool, entertainment system and addition to Young’s home in Chapel Hill, NC.
“We lost our sense of perspective. The house got more and more extravagant,” said Young, who is testifying with immunity from prosecution.
He even bought a Lexus SUV, he said.
Edwards denies knowing about the $725,000 in checks from Mellon sent to Young through her interior designer, Bryan Huffman.
One of the checks made public yesterday was for $100,000, with a notation from Mellon that it was earmarked for an “antique Charleston table.”
Huffman sent along a note to Young about the gift, reading, “As Bunny says, ‘For the rescue of America!’ ”
In addition to the maximum $2,300 to the Edwards campaign allowed by law, Mellon also provided another $6.4 million to a political-ction committee and anti-poverty foundation tied to Edwards.
Records shown at trial documented payments for private jets, five-star hotels and other expenses incurred by Hunter and the Youngs while they were in hiding.
The voicemails show that Baron wasn’t only Edwards’ money man — he was a middle man whom Edwards used to stay in touch with Hunter and Young after the National Enquirer had blown the whistle on the affair.
In the message, Baron sounds as if he has picked up some of Edwards’ not-very-sophisticated code techniques.
“Andrew, it’s Fred,” he said in a January 2008 message.
“I just wanted to give you a heads-up on something. I’m gonna be, uh, meeting with the principal, uh, tomorrow but he wants you to know that he’s not taking your call or her call right now because of, uh, his circumstances with, uh, the EE, and not to take it personally, but it’ll get better soon.
“But right now he’s in a bad place. So, don’t get your feelings hurt if your calls are not being returned or her calls are not being. Uh, that’s the way it is right now.”
The trial is expected to resume today with more testimony from Young, who will be followed by his wife, Cheri.
Additional reporting by Chuck Bennett