Justice Dept. won't retry John Edwards

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

The Justice Department has dropped its prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards over nearly $1 million in payments his backers made to support his pregnant mistress during the 2008 presidential campaign.

The formal dismissal of charges was filed in federal court in Greensboro, N.C., Wednesday, less than two weeks after Edwards’s trial on the campaign finance-related charges ended with a jury deadlocked on five felony counts and voting to acquit him outright on one charge.

“We knew that this case — like all campaign finance cases — would be challenging. But it is our duty to bring hard cases when we believe that the facts and the law support charging a candidate for high office with a crime,” Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer said in a statement. “Last month, the government put forward its best case against Mr. Edwards, and I am proud of the skilled and professional way in which our prosecutors from the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina conducted this trial.”

Breuer did not elaborate on prosecutors’ reasons for abandoning the case. He simply noted the jury’s division on most counts and said: “In the interest of justice, we have decided not to retry Mr. Edwards on those counts.”

Edwards’s defense team welcomed the decision not to seek a retrial.

“While John has repeatedly admitted to his sins, he has also consistently asserted, as we demonstrated at the trial, that he did not violate any campaign law nor even imagined that any campaign laws could apply,” defense lawyers Abbe Lowell, Allison Van Laningham and Alan Duncan said in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon. “We are confident that the outcome of any new trial would have been the same. We are very glad that, after living under this cloud for over three years, John and his family can have their lives back and enjoy the peace they deserve.”

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No retrial for Edwards.

[RandyM]

Can't tell ya how surprised I am......

[logicnreason]

The biggest single benefit edwards has going for him is that he is a life long lib.

 

Were he from the right, he'd be in jail. If not in jail then certainly one trial would never, ever satisfy the liberal left. Never!