The National Enquirer broke the story of the Edwards love child.
Via WACH:
A presidential candidate uses other people’s money to pay off an alleged mistress to keep her story out of the press in the runup to an election. Federal prosecutors later deem the payments illegal campaign contributions and file criminal charges.
The candidate was former Sen. John Edwards and the year was 2008. Edwards had fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, and he used more than $900,000 in donations from political allies to try to keep the affair secret.
In 2011, Edwards was indicted by the Department of Justice for allegedly violating campaign finance laws by accepting contributions in excess of legal limits, using them to cover Hunter’s living expenses, and concealing the funds from the Federal Election Commission. Prosecutors claimed he made the payments because revealing the affair would undermine his public image and sink his campaign.
In 2016, Michael Cohen, then a personal attorney for Republican nominee Donald Trump, arranged a payment from a tabloid to an alleged mistress of his client to bury her story and paid another alleged mistress himself to silence her. Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws, and prosecutors say he was directed to do so by Trump.
President Trump has not been charged with a crime, and he maintains he did nothing illegal. Edwards was not convicted of his charges, a precedent current Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says bolsters his defense that he did not violate the law, but some legal experts believe that comparison is flawed.[…]
The political fallout from the latest revelations is also unclear. Edwards’ career never recovered from his scandal, but Trump’s support is remarkably resilient. Democrats are already talking about the campaign finance violations as potential evidence for impeachment, but Republicans on Capitol Hill have largely shrugged them off.
“It looks like Michael Cohen did some bad things. He pleaded guilty to some bad things,” Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., said Wednesday. “We’ll just have to see what plays out.”