Was the indictment of former North Carolina senator John Edwards pure politics?
The answer to that question may seem obvious. Edwards is a Democrat. The indictments were sought by a Democratic Justice Department. You can hardly accuse the current Administration of engaging in a witchhunt of an opposition political figure.
But what if the Barack Obama-Eric Holder Justice Department had passed on pressing for indictment of Edwards, who was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008 and the Democratic nominee for vice president just seven years ago? Wouldn’t there have been charges that this president and his attorney general were protecting a prominent Democrat from legal accountability? Wouldn’t there have been cries of “cover-up”? The answers to those questions appear more than obvious.
Facing a tough re-election campaign, the Obama Administration may have felt it had no choice but to conclude the investigation into Edwards’ and his campaign that began during the Bush Administration with indictments.
The probability that political considerations drove the administration’s actions is underscored by the almost universal assessment of legal experts that the charges against Edwards have no merit.
Yes, Edwards engaged in morally reprehensible behavior, conducting an extramarital affair when his wife was dying of cancer.
Yes, persons interested in promoting Edwards’ quest for the presidency spent large sums of money to keep the affair secret.
But none of the money went into the Federal Election Commission-regulated Edwards campaign fund. Nor did any of the personnel in the Edwards campaign have any knowledge of the monies.
Ironically, given his track record, Edwards may have spoken plain truth after he was indicted Friday when he said that his behavior had been wrong but that it was not illegal.
Neither President Obama nor Attorney General Holder are dumb. They understand that legally, the Justice Department has almost no case against John Edwards.
But legal considerations have been put aside. They have bigger fish to fry, like getting Barack Obama re-elected, and because of that, they couldn’t afford to let John Edwards become a Republican poster child for charges of Democratic corruption or cover-ups.
The personal injury lawyer who has injured so many may end up experiencing more than a little personal injury himself as a jury of his peers tries him not so much for the civil or criminal laws he probably has not violated, but for transgressing the sorts of laws over which civil and criminal courts should have no jurisdiction: God’s laws.
The Obama Administration should be careful, though. Politically-motivated indictments can be “penny-wise and pound foolish,” paying immediate political dividends (or at least preventing the expenditure of precious political capital), but establishing terrible precedence for future misuse of the power to seek and secure indictments for election law violations.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a plea bargain end the Edwards case or for the charges to simply be dropped.
But neither of those possibilities will happen before the Obama Justice Department has given sufficient plausible and public evidence of its intent to be tough on John Edwards. Anything less will not serve the president’s political purposes.
[I blog on entirely different matters at my personal blog. All right, I admit it: I’m a Lutheran Christian pastor and I write about faith issues there.]