The lawyer for Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the billionaire heiress who bankrolled payments to support John Edwards' mistress, testified forcefully Monday that Mellon considered the payments to be gifts to Edwards, not campaign contributions.

The distinction is critical. The government contends that those payments — and about $250,000 from a second wealthy supporter — constituted illegal and unreported donations to Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign. Edwards, who is charged in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., with six felony counts, argues that they were separate from the campaign and therefore legal.

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Mellon, heiress to the Mellon banking fortune, made the payments, which were falsely labeled as being for furniture purchases, because of her deep friendship with Edwards and her desire to help him with a "personal problem," her lawyer, Alex Forger, testified.

After Mellon, who is now 101, lost her husband and her daughter, she had few close friends and took a liking to Edwards "as a person not because he was running for president," Forger said. "If he wanted to be president of Duke University, she would have supported that."

Forger also testified about a conversation with the middleman who handled the checks, Bryan Huffman, Mellon's interior decorator.

• Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
• Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

"He said the senator did not or should not know" about the money, Forger said, adding that he later thought the checks might have been a scam by Andrew Young, Edwards top aide at the time and now his chief accuser.

As he left the courthouse, Forger signaled A-OK to the cameras, clearly pleased with how his testimony went.

It's not the first time a prosecution witness has ended up potentially helping the defense more than the government.

Last week, Huffman testified that Mellon knew about the affair and didn't care about it. She thought the payment scheme was "foolish" but was having a "wonderful time," Huffman said.

That came after another prosecution witness, Mark Kornblau, national press spokesman for Edwards' campaign, testified that when given the opportunity to sign an affidavit that he wasn't the father of Rielle Hunter's daughter, Edwards refused because it would be an illegal lie under oath.

Prosecutors said Monday that they may finish their case as early as Thursday. It remained unclear whether they intend to call Hunter to the stand.

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The 101-year-old heiress who funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to help John Edwards cover up his extramarital affair thought the whole operation was "foolish" but was having a "wonderful time," the middleman in the payments said Friday.

The witness, Bryan Huffman, was an interior designer for Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the centenarian heiress to the Mellon banking fortune who was a major supporter of Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign.

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Through Huffman, Mellon gave Edwards aides $725,000 to help conceal the candidate's fling with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, falsely labeling the checks as furniture purchases made by Huffman.

• Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
• Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

The checks were known inside the campaign as "Bunny money," Huffman testified at Edwards' trial in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., where he is charged with six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from Mellon and another wealthy supporter.

"She said that we were awfully foolish with the 'furniture business'" — so called because Mellon wanted to hide the payments from her lawyer, who thought she had already given enough money to Edwards, Huffman said.

"But we were having a wonderful time doing it," he said.

In fact, Mellon didn't mind that Edwards was having an affair, Huffman said. But she was irked at times because "she thought that you should probably pay for your girlfriend yourself."

Eventually, Mellon's outlook turned to loud disapproval when Andrew Young — a top assistant to Edwards and now his chief accuser — asked her for $40 million to $50 million to start a foundation after his presidential bid collapsed in January 2008.

"She was rather apoplectic at the size of the request," Huffman said, quoting her as having said, "I cannot believe that the senator wanted me for my money all along."

Edwards called her later and smoothed things over with Mellon by denying he knew how much Young had asked for, which in turn annoyed Young.

"Just call me throw-me-under-the-bus Andrew," Huffman quoted Young as having said.

Mellon isn't expected to testify, but the manager of her estate, Alex Forger, was called to the stand Friday afternoon and testified that when he learned what the "furniture" checks were really for, he was told "that's the way they wanted it."

"The money was for the senator's special need," Forger said.

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Updated at 7 p.m. ET: After a week and a half of tense and emotional testimony about the impact of John Edwards' affair on his closest associates, prosecutors shifted their focus Wednesday and began painting a picture of the former Democratic presidential candidate as a manipulative and greedy politician who used campaign donations for his own purposes.

On the eighth day of Edwards' campaign finance trial, Edwards' daughter Cate left the courtroom in tears as a witness began to recount a conversation her mother had with a campaign aide about the affair.

• Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
• Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

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The witness, Christina Reynolds, told about a meeting in summer 2007 at which Elizabeth Edwards "told me that Mr. Edwards had had an affair, that he had told her about it in late 2006." Reynolds said Elizabeth Edwards told her that her husband had said the affair was over but that she suspected it really hadn't ended.

As Reynolds began testifying, Cate Edwards broke down in tears, whispered something to her father, then grabbed her purse and left the courtroom.

The episode came after Cheri Young, the wife of Edwards' onetime top aide, Andrew Young, wrapped up her testimony under pointed cross-examination from defense lawyers, who elicited details of how she profited from helping cover up Edwards' affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.

Edwards is charged in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., with six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from two wealthy supporters that was used to support Hunter and the Youngs during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Young testified Tuesday that she went along with the plot to pay Hunter to remain silent and to have her husband falsely claim paternity for Edwards' and Hunter's child because she loved her husband and didn't want the responsibility of bringing down a presidential campaign. Crying at times, she described what she said was the tremendous emotional toll the cover-up took on the Youngs and their marriage.

Edwards' lawyers also elicited testimony that Young came away from the scandal with a diamond ring and luxury car.

"What kept you doing these things was the money, wasn't it?" she was asked.

"No, sir, it was not," she replied.

Once Young was dismissed, there was a noticeable shift in the tone of the trial as prosecutors began calling other former Edwards aides and associates in a more straightforward effort to establish the timeline of the affair and to depict Edwards as a politician bent on protecting his public reputation.

"The jury is breathing out," Steven Friedland, a law professor at Elon University in North Carolina, said of the new phase in the proceedings. "They're seeing different witnesses. They're also laughing on occasion, so it's a very different pace."

Josh Brumberger, the campaign aide who first suspected Edwards was having an affair, recounted a heated argument at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in 2006, which he said eventually led Edwards to fire him after he told other campaign staffers about his concerns.

Brumberger testified that Edwards challenged him to come to him directly, "like a man" and "tell me to stop f---ing her," rather than go behind his back to other staffers.

None of Brumberger's testimony directly touched on the cover-up, however, because he was no longer associated with Edwards when two prominent campaign supporters began writing checks to support Hunter and the Youngs.

The point of the testimony, Friedland said, was to "identify how John Edwards was in control."

Edwards "was the master here, the puppeteer — they worked for him," Friedland said. "That's really an important part of the prosecution's case — that it was John Edwards who was controlling."

Jay Gray, Michael Austin and Stacey Klein of NBC News contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

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The wife of the chief accuser in former Sen. John Edwards' campaign finance trial acknowledged under oath Tuesday that she told the FBI her husband used sleeping pills that made him "loopy" and interfered with his memory.

But Cheri Young, the wife of former top Edwards aide Andrew Young, fought off attempts by Edwards' lawyers to cast doubt on the couple's recollection of events, denying that his use of prescription sleeping pills or her migraine headaches hampered their memories. She also denied telling the FBI that her husband drank too much.

---

• Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
• Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

But when asked about Andrew Young's long-term use of prescription sleeping pills, she acknowledged that she had told the FBI that "Ambien makes him loopy" and that "he sometimes can't remember things that occurred the previous day."

Edwards is charged with six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from two wealthy supporters that was used to support Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, and the Youngs during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Edwards' attorneys repeatedly tried to suggest that the Youngs had ulterior motives, getting Cheri Young to admit that she and her husband kept much of the money intended to cover up the affair.

But Young insisted that that was only fair, saying Edwards could have resolved any issues by choosing to "come forward and tell the truth."

"Her reason, in essence, is there was no amount of money that could have made up for what John Edwards put her and her family through," said Hampton Dellinger, a legal analyst for NBC News and msnbc.com. 

After the testimony last week of her husband, which many legal analysts described as shaky, "Cheri Young was able to take ... the focus off of her husband, put it back on the defendant, John Edwards, and that's just what the government needed," Dellinger said.

Jay Gray and Michael Austin of NBC News in Greensboro, N.C., contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — The wife of the star prosecution witness broke down on the stand Monday morning while recounting how former Sen. John Edwards wanted her husband to falsely claim paternity for the child of his mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Cheri Young testified that when her husband, former Edwards aide Andrew Young, told her about Edwards' request, her first thought was "how in the world could Mr. Edwards ask one more thing of me of us?"

Full trial coverage on msnbc.com

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

"Of course, I said absolutely not," Young testified, saying she screamed and cursed at her husband.

---

Cheri Young took the witness stand after her husband spent last week describing how nearly $1 million in money from supporters of Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign was funneled to support Hunter and the Youngs after rumors of the Edwards-Hunter affair surfaced. She is also key to the prosecution's campaign finance case because she was asked to countersign checks from one of the donors, which were routed through her decorator.

 

 

Young recounted a four-way call among her, her husband, Hunter and Edwards in which "Mr. Edwards was trying to get everyone on board."

"'This is it; this is our time; we're going great; we've gotten this far,'" Young quoted Edwards as having said. She said she "didn't want the responsibility of knowing that because I didn't go along with this ... that the campaign would explode and it would be my fault."

"So I ultimately agreed to go along with the lie," she said, sobbing.

Young said Edwards seemed determined that his own wife, Elizabeth — who later died of cancer — must not learn about the affair with Hunter, a videographer for the presidential campaign.

"He didn't want her to find out at that point because she was going to die soon," Young said.

Before leaving court early because of a migraine headache, Young made it clear that she resented Edwards and Hunter, who moved in with the Youngs after The National Enquirer began trying to photograph her at her New Jersey home. 

"She took a big spin and said, 'I'm here!'" said Young, who said it was intimidating to have "a presidential candidate's pregnant mistress coming to my house that night, last minute."

Some of the donors' money helped pay for Hunter's "spiritual adviser," Young testified, adding that Hunter once called the adviser when the wrong sauce arrived on her Reuben sandwich.

On another occasion, she said, Hunter rejected a hotel room because it didn't have "good energy."

After the Enquirer published pictures of Hunter and confronted Edwards about the affair, Young said, her immediate reaction was "Oh, my God. ... Well, i wanted to say 'I told you so,' but I didn't."

Steven Friedland, a professor at the Elon University School of Law in Elon, N.C., said Young succeeded in "personalizing this whole situation for the Youngs and showing that it's not really about the Youngs."

Instead, Friedland said, she showed that "it was about John Edwards" and how the Youngs "sacrificed for him and his presidential aspirations." 

Michael Austin and Stacey Klein of NBC News and M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com contributed to this report. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

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ANALYSIS

GREENSBORO, N.C. — After an eventful first five days, here are three keys as the John Edwards case moves on to week two:

Did the defense's cross-examination of Andrew Young destroy the government's case?
Stymied by technical glitches (no mike, a balky video player), frequently sustained objections and a somewhat scattershot approach, the cross-examination of Edwards' former aide by lead defense attorney Abbe Lowell got off to a halting start. But by Day Two, Lowell's questioning of Young had turned surgical. Time and again, Lowell forced Young to acknowledge inconsistencies among his past statements, and between those statements and his courtroom testimony. The centerpiece came when Young acknowledged that most of the $925,000 the government contends went to cover up Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter was, in fact, kept by Young and his wife, Cheri, to finance a family manse.

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By the end, Lowell (solemn-faced and in a dark suit) had the air of an undertaker while Young (fatigued and evidencing a gray pallor atop his tanned faced) looked funeral-ready. And yet ... I'm not sure the government's theory of the case got buried by the cross-examination. No matter how much of the money trail led to the money pit that was the Youngs' dream home, some amount of political supporter money well above the $2,300 individual contribution limit benefited Hunter. Indeed, Edwards admitted as much in his trial brief filed in mid-April: "[T]here is no doubt that payments by Ms. Mellon and Mr. Baron covered Ms. Hunter's personal expenses (and much more so, the Youngs' personal expenses, such as the construction of their dream home." So, while Lowell's cross of Young was good lawyering and great theater, the government's prosecution theory likely survived it.

Full trial coverage from NBC News and msnbc.com

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

Did Andrew Young damage the prosecution more during his direct examination?
Ultimately, Young's answers in three areas of questioning during his direct examination may prove more helpful to Edwards than the admissions forced out of him by Lowell on cross. First, Young made it clear that neither Rachel "Bunny" Mellon nor Fred Baron expected anything in return for their largesse, thus confirming that this isn't the typical quid pro quo political corruption case.

Second, Young testified that both he and Edwards told Mellon that her donations were intended to aid Edwards with a personal matter, not a political one.

Third, Young said Edwards consistently reassured him that the arrangement was legal. The last point is a huge one: If the government was counting on Young to establish that Edwards knew the Baron-Mellon financial support for his mistress ran afoul of federal election laws, his testimony proved a major disappointment.

Is an anti-Andrew Young train coming and, if so, how long is it?
Given that the defense was able to turn the trial of Edwards into the trial of Young during much of Week One, prosecutors have to be worried about a possible parade of witnesses coming to the stand to disparage Young's character and dispute his recollection. We can't know for sure until they take the stand, but there are indications that potential defense witnesses such as respected North Carolina lawyer David Kirby, acclaimed author Robert Draper and veteran pollster Harrison Hickman may offer event accounts that differ dramatically from Young's.

This trial is a long way from over. But it's fair to say that, thanks to Young's direct testimony as much as anything else, prosecutors likely see some hard work ahead before they will feel comfortable resting the government's case.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Lawyers in the John Edwards trial wrangled with the judge over whether to allow testimony about a sex tape of the former presidential candidate and allegations of an affair involving Andrew Young, the ex-aide who ended a week on the stand Friday, and a witness.

Edwards is accused of directing a conspiracy to use about $1 million in campaign donors' payments to help hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008. He denies knowing about the money and has pleaded not guilty.

Full trial coverage

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

Young testified this week that he deposited the payments from an elderly heiress and a wealthy Texas lawyer who served as Edwards' campaign finance chairman into personal accounts controlled by him and his wife. The money was used to help build a $1.5 million North Carolina home; Young, who is testifying under an immunity agreement, said Friday that he didn't pay income taxes on the money, considering it a "gift."

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Prosecutors objected Friday when a lawyer for Edwards asked Young whether had threatened to release a "private video" to expose Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles instructed Edwards lawyer Abbe Lowell to continue his cross-examination of Young without mentioning the tape.

After conferring with the judge, Lowell said he would wait to potentially discuss the tape when the defense presents its case.

Hunter sued Young in state court two years ago over ownership of the sex tape and other personal items in Young's possession. That civil suit was settled earlier this year with an agreement to destroy all copies of the tape, although there are suggestions in court documents that federal investigators may still have a copy.

Defense attorneys had no intention of showing the tape to the jury but wanted to mention it in the context of the allegation that Young threatened to out Edwards' affair with Hunter in an August 2008 conversation on a dead-end road near Edwards' Chapel Hill estate.

Young was the first witness called by prosecutors and earlier this week testified about the conversation. Young had said Edwards was acting nervous and that "at one point I feared for my life," he testified Friday.

Confronted with copies of his amended tax returns for 2007 and 2008, Young acknowledged that he had used about $1 million of $1.2 million in the payments from Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and lawyer Fred Baron for himself.

He said that he didn't pay taxes on the money because he believed the income to be "gifts," not taxable income.

The distinction is at the heart of the defense strategy that the secret payments were "gifts from friends" intended to hide Edwards' affair from his cancer-stricken wife, not campaign contributions intended to influence the outcome of the election.

Hunter is expected to testify later in the trial, also with an immunity agreement.

Young also acknowledged contacting three witnesses listed for the defense before the trial occurred, telling Lowell he had called two men and a woman.

Eagles told the defense it could mention that Young had called the witnesses in opening statements, but she barred Edwards' lawyers from characterizing the contact as "witness tampering" or mentioning that Young had had a "one-night stand" with one of the witnesses.

On Friday, Lowell asked Young what he had asked the woman when he called.

"It was for a personal issue, sir," Young replied.

Asked how the woman described her potential testimony, Young replied that she said she would tell the truth. That prompted Lowell to ask Young if he responded by telling her that the truth would "mess up everything."

Young said he couldn't recall whether he said that.

Young's wife, Cheri, took the stand late Friday and will return Monday.

Lowell on Friday quoted a passage from Young's 2010 tell-all book about the Edwards' scandal, in which Young acknowledged being paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars" through publishing and movie deals.

Young wrote that he was concerned that "anyone looking in from the outside would consider what I did and conclude that I must have been a cold-blooded schemer who was motivated by ego or greed or the desire for power."

"Mr. Young, isn't that exactly what you are?" Lowell asked.

"No, sir," Young replied.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards' defense lawyer on Thursday picked apart ex-aide Andrew Young's story that he was asked to use campaign money to conceal Edwards' affair with a mistress, accusing him of making up stories about the former presidential contender to make money off of the scandal.

Full trial coverage
Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

Andrew Young took witness stand for a fourth straight day at Edwards' campaign finance fraud trial. The star prosecution witness is key to the government's case that while campaigning for the White House in 2008, Edwards directed a scheme to use nearly $1 million in secret payments from two wealthy donors to conceal an affair with his pregnant mistress.

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Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six criminal counts and faces up to 30 years behind bars if convicted. The defense argued in opening statements that Young spent most of the money at issue in the case to build a $1.5 million house for his family, not to buy the silence of Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter.

The defense sought to undermine Young's credibility and paint him as a pathological liar.

Defense lawyer Abbe Lowell pointed out inconsistencies with Young's account of the scandal at trial this week and in multiple other accounts, including grand jury testimony and his 2010 tell-all book about Edwards.

Lowell asked Young whether he first learned Hunter was pregnant in May 2007, as his book says, in June 2007, as he testified, or in early July, a date backed by phone records and Hunter's medical records.

The timeline issues could challenge the accounts of conversations Young said he had with Edwards in a car discussing whom to ask for money to help take care of Hunter and discussing Hunter's pregnancy.

Young said he couldn't recall the exact date for either event.

Lowell also challenged Young on which amount of secret money a wealthy heiress said she would provide to help make Edwards president — $1.2 million, as he testified this week, or $900,000 and $925,000, figures he had previously given.

Young said the number he provided this week is the correct one.

Young had falsely claimed paternity of Edwards' daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, while Edwards was campaigning for president. Edwards acknowledged two years later that he had fathered the child.

As Lowell's detailed questioning continued, some jurors appeared distracted, and even U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Eagles grew impatient.

"I'm not quite following," the judge told Lowell after he asked Young a question about whose idea it was for Young to claim paternity of Hunter's child. "We're about to beat a dead horse here."

She warned the attorney she might cut off his questions if they weren't relevant to the criminal charges facing Edwards.

"You're going to get to the money, right?" she asked Lowell.

Young was expected to remain on the stand all day Thursday. His wife, Cheri Young, could take the stand Friday.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards' lawyers got their first crack at the prosecution's star witness in his campaign finance criminal trial Wednesday, attacking former aide Andrew Young for inconsistencies in his account of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate's affair with his campaign videographer.

During cross-examination, Edwards' lead defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, focused on discrepancies between Young's tell-all book "The Politician" and what he said this week in court.

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Full trial coverage

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

Using Young's earlier testimony, in which he attributed the discrepancies in his book to the passage of time and the need for more research, Lowell asked Young whether he had corrected his book in the paperback version that came out six months after the hardback copy. Young said he hadn't.

Lowell also asked Young whether he was the kind of person who has a better memory after the fact — and again, Young answered no.

Noting that Young wrote in the book that Edwards wouldn't call his mistress, Rielle Hunter, on the day she gave birth, Lowell asked, "Did you know that, in fact, John Edwards called her in the delivery room?"

Young said he wasn't aware of that call.

At one point, Lowell asked, "You really hate Mr. Edwards, don't you?"

Young responded, "I have mixed feelings."

Lowell said Young gave different accounts of the campaign when he was interviewed by the FBI and when he went on a book tour.

Young was shown invoices of his commissions from political organizations that were actually submitted under his wife's name. Asked whether his wife had ever worked for the Edwards campaign, Young said no.

Young is scheduled to return to the stand for more cross-examination Thursday. His wife, Cheri, who was in court for the first time Wednesday, is expected to be the next prosecution witness.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Andrew Young, John Edwards' former campaign aide and close friend, testified Tuesday that using money from wealthy donors to help support Edwards' mistress and cover up their affair "felt and smelled wrong."

"It just all seems crazy," Young said in the second day of his testimony at Edwards' campaign finance criminal trial. "It felt and smelled wrong."

Full John Edwards trial coverage

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

Continual phone calls from Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, a videographer on his campaign staff, were so frustrating, Young said, that one day he answered her call by saying, "Somebody better be pregnant or dying."

---

Hunter responded, "Nobody's dying," he said.

Young testified that when he told Edwards that Hunter was pregnant, "he said that she was a crazy slut and it was a 1 in 3 chance it was his child."

Phone records, email messages, and schedules were laid out Tuesday during Young's chronology of the Edwards-Hunter affair. When Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, encountered Hunter at the launch of Edwards' presidential campaign in December 2006, Hunter was fired as a campaign videographer. That left her unemployed, and she occasionally threatened to go public on the affair, Young said.

Young said Edwards first asked him to use proceeds from the sale of his house to help Hunter and then had him try Edwards' former law professor and a successful musician. Both said no.

Then came a note from Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, a socialite who is now 101, who was furious about the media treatment of Edwards' $400 haircuts.

"I told [Mellon] that we had a non-campaign expense that would benefit Mr. Edwards and that we needed her help," Young testified. He said he didn't tell Mellon the money would be used to cover up an affair.

"Please send bills to me," she wrote, offering "a way to help our friend without government restrictions."

Mellon wrote seven checks totaling $725,000 to her decorator, Bryan Huffman, who signed them over to Young's wife to co-sign using her maiden name. Mellon used descriptions in the checks' memo lines like "chairs" and "antique Charleston table."

Hunter received an allowance, usually $5,000 a month but sometimes as much as $12,000.  

Contradicting Edwards' claim that he knew nothing about the money, Young said that the two discussed the money and that Young questioned the legality of the payments five times, but Edwards repeatedly insisted it was legal and that it was "not a campaign expense."

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Young also explained his version of how Elizabeth Edwards discovered the affair. He said John Edwards was napping after a trip to China and Elizabeth answered his cellphone. It was Hunter calling, and she apparently kept talking as though John Edwards had answered. 

Young said Elizabeth Edwards took John Edwards' phone away and gave him her cellphone. After that, Edwards communicated with Hunter through a special "bat phone," Young said.

Young isn't expected to be cross-examined by the defense until Wednesday at the earliest.

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ANALYSIS

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The list of John Edwards' gambles is legendary. It grew longer on Monday.

The dice roll came early in Alison Van Laningham's opening statement on behalf of the once-acclaimed lawyer and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee:

We are not here to debate whether a large amount of money flowed from Mrs. Mellon or Mr. Baron. We now know that it did. We are here to follow the path of that money, to follow the path, and the evidence will show that it ended up in the pockets of Andrew and Cheri Young and in the wood and in the stone and in the walls and in the roof of their $1.5 million house in Chapel Hill.

(Those reference are to Fred Baron and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, money from whom was used for the travel and living expenses of Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter and of political aide Andrew Young and his family in 2007 and 2008, while Edwards was seeking the Democratic nomination for president.)

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And with that allegation — essentially that Young, not John Edwards, sought hundreds of thousands of dollars from Edwards' wealthy political supporters and then kept it for himself — United States v. Johnny Reid Edwards was transformed into Edwards v. Andrew Aldridge Young.

Full trial coverage

Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

A common mistake in opening statements is for lawyers to overpromise. After underdelivering during the evidence phase of the case, the attorneys then get nailed by opposing counsel during closing arguments. In months of pretrial hearings and thousands of pages in written briefings, Team Edwards gave little indication that the attempted takedown of Young would take a Tracy Kidder-esque turn.

In retrospect, Edwards's intention to center his defense on Young's alleged pocket-lining and home-building helps explain his awkward last-minute addition of Van Laningham and her partner, Alan Duncan, to his trial team. The pair represented Rielle Hunter in her civil suit against Young over possession of the Edwards-Hunter sex tape. It's now clear they learned enough to level serious self-dealing allegations against the former aide to Edwards.

If Edwards can back up the allegations against Young, we're looking at a very different case. I have long thought the facts favored the government while the law (at least as applied before his prosecution) was on Edwards' side. If Edwards can successfully recast the facts and replace Young for himself as the principal architect and beneficiary of Mellon's and Baron's beneficence, the gamble in opening may look like a smart bet by trial's end. 

A final thought: Given that Edwards thinks he has the goods on Young, I was surprised that Van Laningham's opening continued with the claim that Edwards' interest in keeping his affair quiet was centered on saving his marriage, not his 2008 campaign for president:

We are here to talk about the evidence that will show that John Edwards did not hide his mistress for any campaign purpose. He did it why anybody does it, to keep it from his wife and to keep from humiliating himself and his family.

To my mind — and to borrow a concept from labor and employment law — Edwards' interest in hiding his affair is a classic case of "mixed motive": He was trying to preserve the viability of both his marriage and his campaign. 

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