Edwards wanted to be Supreme Court justice, former adviser testifies

[Geee]

Fox News:

Even as John Edwards' presidential hopes dwindled, the candidate had ambitions for high office, his former senior economic adviser testified Thursday.

"We talked about a more elaborate long-term goal of Mr. Edwards, which was to be a Supreme Court justice," Leo Hindery said on the witness stand.

Instead of landing on the federal bench, Edwards is now a defendant in federal court. The detail about Edwards' lingering political aspirations emerged shortly before the prosecution rested its case Thursday in that trial, calling its last set of witnesses after a dramatic three weeks of testimony.

Prosecutors did not end up calling the mistress, Rielle Hunter, to the stand, despite her featuring prominently in much of the testimony so far.

"They probably thought she was too dangerous," Steven Friedland, a law professor at Elon University and former federal prosecutor, told Fox News.

Instead, prosecutors attempted to leave jurors with an impression of Edwards as a career politician who still had ambitions for high office, even as his presidential hopes and marriage were crumbling. On the prosecution's last day of witness testimony Thursday, the government was also working hard to prove that the botched attempt to hide Edwards' extramarital affair was to protect his political career -- and not just his family. They argue that money channeled toward Hunter while the affair remained a secret constituted an illegal campaign donation.

[pollyannaish]

Oy. This guy is the worst kind of social climbing pariah. With an inflated sense of self importance. Blech.