The Story Is Out

Bloggers and journalism pundits have been intensely debating the issue for days. But on Friday, ABC News took the plunge by becoming the first mainstream media outlet to go big on the John Edwards extramarital-affair story. ABC's investigative team of producer Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross posted a Web version of their story that accuses the former U.S. senator of "repeatedly" lying during his unsuccessful recent presidential bid about his relationship with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker and sometime campaign aide. The story says that Edwards now has given ABC an interview, to be broadcast Friday night on "World News Tonight" and "Nightline," in which Edwards acknowledges the affair, but says that he "did not love her."

Curiously, according to ABC's Web site, Edwards did not give the interview to chief investigative correspondent Ross, known as a dogged if not fierce interviewer. Instead, the story reports that the interview was conducted by Bob Woodruff, the ABC News correspondent who was sidelined as one of the network's principal anchors after he was seriously injured while on assignment in Iraq. A network source said that Edwards insisted that the interview, which was conducted in Edwards's home state of North Carolina, be conducted by Woodruff.

Even more curiously, perhaps, Edwards denies in the interview that he is the father of a baby girl born to Hunter earlier this year. According to ABC, Edwards said he knew he was not the father of baby Frances Quinn based on the timing of the baby's birth last Feb. 27. He told the network his relationship with Hunter had ended too early for him to be the father. The network says he acknowledged, however, that he had not taken a paternity test. A former Edwards campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said publicly that he is the child's father.

ABC quotes friends of Hunter saying that Edwards had met her in a New York City bar in 2006 and that his political action committee had subsequently paid her $114,000 to produce documentaries for his Web site even though she lacked experience. Edwards told the network that his wife, Elizabeth, who has been suffering from breast cancer, learned of the affair in 2006. Edwards told Woodruff his wife's cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Later, Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.

The couple's marriage was always regarded as a political asset for Edwards. Elizabeth's warm, engaging everywoman appeal balanced her husband's more distant demeanor and Ken-doll looks. The anguish they've endured—the loss of their son Wade in 1996 and Elizabeth's battles with cancer—further humanized them. Because voters responded favorably to all this, Edwards's campaign advisers dispatched Elizabeth regularly to campaign alongside her husband in the buildup to the Democratic primaries. Edwards's "total life story is a plus … and certainly having a strong marriage for 29 years is a key part of that life," longtime adviser Ed Turlington told NEWSWEEK in March 2007. "I have observed them up close as a married couple and family for more than 20 years. What you see in public is the private reality—that is, a strong marriage, a partnership, love and affection. And it appears to me that they're even closer today than they were when I first met them years ago."

At the time Turlington spoke, Edwards had already engaged in his affair with Hunter. Months later, in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses, a NEWSWEEK reporter sat down with Edwards to discuss the campaign and his life story. Asked about the lessons he learned from the 2004 campaign, he said, "I'd been through a national campaign, a national spotlight, and there's a seasoning and a toughness that comes from doing that. And Elizabeth's health, the two of us went through that, our family went through that together. And I think my feeling is that I'm going to tell people, I'm going to speak the truth, whatever the consequences are … The most important thing for me is to be direct and honest with people and for them to just see me."