John Edwards needs to step up and take a paternity test with his mistress’ child immediately to prove that a loyal campaign aide isn’t the baby’s daddy, the staffer’s mom told The Post yesterday.
Jacquelyn Aldridge made clear she deeply doubts her married son – Edwards campaign official Andrew Young – cheated on his beautiful wife and impregnated Edwards’ paramour, Rielle Hunter, last year.
“I wish, very deeply, that both of them – John Edwards and Rielle Hunter – would have the DNA test,” Aldridge, 73, told The Post.
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Edwards last week admitted to adultery with Hunter, his former presidential campaign videographer, but denied fathering her 6-month-old daughter. Young, 42, claims he is Frances Quinn Hunter’s dad, despite the fact that Hunter has remained mum on the baby’s paternity and no father is mentioned by name on the birth certificate.
Asked if she believes two-time Democratic presidential contender Edwards, 55, is the real father, Aldridge declined to answer.
“I’m not supposed to talk,” said the North Carolina woman.
But she called her son and his wife, Cheri, “honorable people.”
“Andrew is a decent human being. I love him to death. I have great admiration for him and his wife. His wife’s a terrific person. We believe in Andrew and Cheri,” Aldridge said.
Edwards has said publicly he is willing to take a paternity test, but Hunter, 44, has said she will not allow her daughter to be tested. The National Enquirer has reported that the duo orchestrated that arrangement to allow him to continue denying paternity.
Young’s claim of paternity has been met with widespread skepticism because, among other things, he is viewed as a devoted dad of his three kids with Cheri, and because Edwards now admits he cheated with Hunter on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth.
A former well-placed campaign worker who had inside knowledge of Hunter’s relationship with Edwards told FoxNews.- com, “There was no relationship between her and Andrew Young.”
Young’s former neighbors in Raleigh have told The Post they believe he would lie about being Frances Quinn’s father out of his deep devotion to Edwards. Young had worked since the late 1990s for the pol, a former US senator and the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
Another factor causing doubt about Young’s claim is the fact that Hunter and the Young family earlier this year moved into the same multimillion-dollar home in Santa Barbara, Calif., at the expense of Edwards’ former finance chairman.
Hunter later moved to another Santa Barbara house after clashing with Cheri. Hunter reportedly is being paid $15,000 each month by former Edwards campaign finance boss Fred Baron.
Baron also is reportedly paying Young $20,000 per month.
Meanwhile, an Edwards associate said a separate payment of $14,000 made to Hunter by Edwards’ political-action committee was for 100 hours of unused campaign videotape she had shot.