John Edwards Mistress Cover-Up Casts Spotlight on Rachel Mellon, One of America's Richest Women

This was at ABC News some time ago, "John Edwards Meets Privately with Bunny Mellon, Potential Witness in Cover Up Case." And now at New York Times, "Edwards Case Casts Spotlight on a Long Reclusive Donor":

Rachel Mellon, now 100 years old and long one of the richest women in America, has lived a life of maximum discretion and minimum exposure. Even in her prime, in the 1960s, when she redesigned the White House Rose Garden for her friend Jacqueline Kennedy, she avoided the public eye.

So it was a rude shock when Mrs. Mellon, known chiefly for her passion for horticulture (she has collected more than 10,000 books on botany) and her simple yet impeccable taste, became ensnared in the protracted scandal surrounding John Edwards, the former Democratic candidate for president.

Mr. Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on charges that he violated campaign finance laws in an effort to conceal an extramarital affair while running for president in 2008, mainly by using $725,000 given to him secretly by Mrs. Mellon. Mr. Edwards pleaded not guilty, and the case is headed for trial. Mrs. Mellon was not named in the indictment — she was referred to as Person C — but is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator.

“It was so sad,” said Mario Buatta, a New York decorator dubbed the Prince of Chintz who knew Mrs. Mellon in earlier days. “She’s had such a clean life.”

Check the whole thing. Mrs. Mellon was widowed to Paul Mellon, heir to the Mellon family banking fortune (think "Carnegie-Mellon"). Paul Mellon died in 1999 and Mrs. Mellon also lost her daughter, Eliza, from her first marriage, and a longtime companion, Robert Isabell, "a legendary events planner ... she buried him on her property." Basically, the old dame got lonely, and thus:

Mr. Edwards ingratiated himself with Mrs. Mellon to the point where she gave him millions of dollars as well as a gold necklace as a good-luck charm for the campaign trail, according to a tell-all memoir by Andrew Young, Mr. Edwards’s former aide, who is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

In May 2007, when Mr. Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, told Mr. Edwards she was pregnant, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Young began looking for people who could give them money to help conceal the affair, the indictment said.

About the same time, it said, Mrs. Mellon wrote a note to Mr. Young, saying: “I was sitting alone in a grim mood — furious that the press attacked Senator Edwards on the price of a haircut. But it inspired me — from now on, all haircuts, etc. that are necessary and important for his campaign — please send the bills to me. ... It is a way to help our friend without government restrictions.”

At that point, the indictment said, Mrs. Mellon had already contributed the maximum permitted by law — $2,300 — to Mr. Edwards’s campaign.

Over the next eight months, the indictment said, Mrs. Mellon sent checks for Mr. Edwards through Mr. Huffman, the decorator, totaling $725,000, “falsely” referring in memo lines to things like “chairs,” “antique Charleston table” and “bookcase.”

After Mr. Edwards dropped out of the presidential race in early 2008, Mr. Young said, he still hoped that Mrs. Mellon would give him $50 million and access to her private jet so he could lead a fight against poverty around the world. (This never occurred.)

I can't even express my contempt for John Edwards. Political scandals are a dime a dozen, but this one's among the sleaziest I can ever recall --- and that's saying a lot, considering the deep bench among Democrat Party scumbags.