John Edwards

This article is about the American attorney and politician. For other people with the same name, see John Edwards (disambiguation).

John Edwards
Official portrait, c. 1999–2003
United States Senator
from North Carolina
In office
January 3, 1999 – January 3, 2005
Preceded byLauch Faircloth
Succeeded byRichard Burr
Personal details
Born
Johnny Reid Edwards

(1953-06-10) June 10, 1953 (age 71)
Seneca, South Carolina, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1977; sep. 2010)​
[a]
Domestic partnerRielle Hunter (2006–2015)
Children5, including Cate
EducationClemson University
North Carolina State University (BA)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (JD)
Signature

Johnny Reid Edwards[1] (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who represented North Carolina in the United States Senate from 1999 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the vice presidential nominee under US Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. He also was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.

Edwards defeated the incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina's 1998 Senate election. Toward the end of his six-year term, he declined to seek re-election, and instead sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. Edwards suspended his campaign shortly after Super Tuesday, and later accepted the Democratic vice presidential nomination.

Following Kerry's loss to incumbent President George W. Bush, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.

After his 2008 presidential campaign, Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 3, 2011, on six felony charges of violating multiple federal campaign contribution laws to cover up an extramarital affair to which he eventually admitted. He was found not guilty on one count, and the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining five charges, as the jury was unable to come to an agreement.[2] The Justice Department dropped the remaining charges and did not attempt to retry Edwards.[3] Though he was not convicted of any crime, the revelation that he had engaged in an extramarital affair and fathered a child while his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was dying of cancer, severely damaged his public image and effectively ended his political career.[4]


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  1. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (July 7, 2007). "The 2004 Election; A First-Term Senator's Swift Political Ascent – John Reid Edwards". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 15, 2018.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mistrial was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Roig-Franzia, Manuel (June 13, 2012). "John Edwards will not be retried, Justice Department announces". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 18, 2012.
  4. ^ Luscombe, Belinda (January 23, 2010). "Can John Edwards' Dreadful Image Be Rehabilitated?". TIME. Retrieved August 31, 2024.