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Talk of the Town

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BREAKING POLITICS 8-9-08 John Edwards: Extramarital Affair Happened; Denies Fathering Child
Saturday, Aug 09, 2008 3:40pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. From CNN (By: Tom Pace, Talk of the Town) BREAKING: POLITICS 8-9-08 Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards dropped a bombshell to ABC News on Friday, August 8th. The 55 year old former North Carolina senator admitted to an extramarital affair back in 2006.

In a written statement Friday, Edwards said, "In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness."

According to CNN, he denied being the father of the woman's child, as had been alleged in tabloid reports. In an interview on ABC News "Nightline," Edwards acknowledged the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, which began after she was hired to make documentary videos for his campaign, ABC said.

"I am responsible for it. I alone am responsible for it," Edwards said on ABC News "Nightline."

Edwards told the network that his rise from "a small town boy in North Carolina" who "came from nothing" to a successful lawyer, U.S. senator and national public figure "fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want."

Edwards, in the ABC interview, acknowledged meeting with Hunter at the Beverly Hills hotel at the request of a friend of hers.

"I was there from a very simple reason, because I was trying to keep this mistake that I had made from becoming public," Edwards said.

The CNN story continued, as Edwards is quaoted as saying. "You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help." Read the full statement

Edwards said a blurry photograph published by the National Enquirer that purportedly showed him holding Hunter's child inside the hotel room could not be authentic, since the baby was not there at their meeting.

"I don't know if the picture has been altered, manufactured, if it's a picture of me taken some other time, holding another baby. I have no idea," he said. "I was not at this meeting holding a child for my photograph to be taken, I can tell you that."