Legal Commentary

The Six Degrees of Rielle Hunter

By Jeralyn

Rielle Hunter's ex-husband is a lawyer who is also the son of former Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter, infamous for his handling or mishandling, depending on your view, of the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Rielle Hunter and Alexander "Kip" Munro Hunter III were married for 10 years.

Here's more on Fred Baron, the Dallas lawyer and former John Edwards campaign chief who provided relocation funds (his own, not the campaign's) to Hunter and Andrew Young to relocate.

Hunter also was the inspiration for the Alison Poole party-girl character in Jay McInerney's book, Story of My Life. More on Hunter here.

The New York Times tries to figure out why politicians go on TV to do mea culpas.

Narcissism doesn’t lead politicians to believe that they can have an affair and get away with it. It leads them to believe that they can go on television and dispel it.

More...

I'm still interested in the possible shakedown angle. I'm not reading anything about Rielle Hunter that leads me to believe she's got anything but her own financial interests at heart. The Enquirer told Wolf Blitzer to assume it had paid for the photos and news tips.

Hunter's sister is now demanding a DNA test. She also claims Hunter " was not involved in "setting up" Edwards at the hotel meeting." So what? She didn't have to set it up -- the question is, once it was set up, did she agree to go along with it? Did she get paid by the Enquirer? Did she share in the money the Enquirer paid to anyone else? How much?

Some media outlets are focused on whether "hush money" was paid to Hunter to buy her silence. I think they should be asking whether she or her pals were demanding Edwards pay money in exchange for anything.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 09, 2008 (boomark / email).