Edwards supporter and tort kingpin Fred Baron is saying he paid cash to Hunter without Edwards’ knowledge:
Mr. Baron would not say how much money he provided for the couple’s move. He said Mr. Edwards did not know about the arrangement.
“The money was purely and simply to get them out of North Carolina and to get them into a stable place,” he said. “They were unable to afford a second home. It was to give them the ability to live somewhere where they wouldn’t be harassed.”
Mr. Baron is one of the top Democratic fundraisers in the country and has been instrumental in the Texas Democratic Party’s efforts to rebuild. For Mr. Edwards’ two presidential campaigns, Mr. Baron raised millions of dollars.
This is the same Fred Baron who received $430,000 from the Edwards campaign to reimburse travel on his private jet:
Some candidates rely so often on the same corporate patrons for discounted private jet travel that they seem to have their own air chauffeurs. John Edwards, the Democratic former senator from North Carolina, paid more than $430,000 in the first six months of this year for the use of a jet owned by Fred Baron, his finance chairman, a prominent trial lawyer.