3.  Edwards Considers Confessing Paternity as Grand Jury Hears Testimony on Campaign Spending

John Edwards has been trying to keep his head down in North Carolina, but it's getting harder and harder for the erstwhile presidential candidate to stay out of the spotlight. His former mistress is planning a move back to North Carolina, the supposed father of her baby is writing a book that names Edwards as the father, and a grand jury is investigating what the New York Times calls "a complicated and novel legal issue," namely "whether payments to a candidate's mistress to ensure her silence (and thus maintain the candidate's viability) should be considered campaign donations and thus whether they should be reported." If so, that could mean trouble for Edwards, whose campaign funneled more than $100,000 to Hunter over the course of his run—and that's not counting the money Edwards supporters spent to keep her housed and driving a BMW. But his former campaign aide's book could turn into an even bigger headache for Edwards than the grand jury investigation. Andrew Young, who once claimed to be the father of Reille Hunter's baby, filled a book proposal with scandalous details of the affair between Edwards and Hunter, includng that Edwards always knew he was the father of Hunter's child and that he once promised a distraght Hunter he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony (where the Dave Matthews Band would make an appearance) after his wife died.

Read original story in The New York Times | Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009