If true, this is totally unsurprising:
A call girl working for alleged “Millionaire Madam” Anna Gristina told investigators she was paid to have sex with former U.S. Sen. John Edwards when he was in New York raising money for his failed presidential bid, DNAinfo has learned.
Edwards is the first big name to surface in connection to Gristina’s alleged prostitution scheme run out of an Upper East Side apartment.
Edwards’ lawyer declined to comment when reached Wednesday. On Thursday morning, his attorneys issued a statement to Politico and other news outlets saying their client “categorically” denied the allegation. Later Thursday morning, DNAinfo was contacted by Edwards’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, demanding a retraction.
He’s really turning out to have been a grade A scumbag.
Schlemizel
Presidents with side action
FDR
Ike
JFK
The Big Dog
Presidents without side action
LBJ
Jimmy Carter
St. Ronnie
Boy Blunder
I see a pattern
8-{D
redshirt
MILLS!
Personally, I don’t care. Prostitution should be legal.
That said, I’m so glad Obama wiped the floor with Edwards in 2008, because this clown would have ruined America had he gotten elected.
Brachiator
Are you people high? Do you really not understand that quite a number of politicians and business leaders pay hookers for sex? Or have mistresses, or in the case of female politicians, toyboys?
pragmatism
i read Gristina as Griftina. got grifters on the brain.
Anoniminous
Have I entered a time warp?
Who gives a damn about the Cast of Supporting
ShitheadsCharacters from the 2008 Presidential election campaigns?Baud
@Brachiator: John didn’t say he is the only Grade A scumbag.
Punchy
John HEADwards?
Brachiator
@Schlemizel:
You’re wrong about LBJ. Probably about Reagan.
And who knows what went on between the Boy Blunder and Condi Rice.
@redshirt:
Agree with you. I could even believe that some Republicans with a hint of Edwards’ activities were sorry that he didn’t win, and let them expose him after he was elected.
eemom
@Anoniminous:
well, Steve M covered 2016 republicans this morning, so we gotta have SOMETHING nobody gives a shit about to discuss.
Cluttered Mind
I voted for Edwards in the 2004 and 2008 primaries and would do so again, provided I only knew what I knew at that point. He may have turned out to be a total scumbag personally but his rhetoric about the two Americas and the message about how rich people may as well not even be living in the same country as poor people was spot on and deserved a place in our national discourse. That said, I still feel a bit dirty in hindsight for ever casting a vote for the man. I just tell myself I was voting for his ideas, not him. Also, it was only a primary and I was voting in a super tuesday state both times.
Scott
@Brachiator: They wouldn’t have exposed him after he was elected. They would’ve exposed him the day after he was nominated.
TooManyJens
@Brachiator: What makes him a Grade A scumbag in my eyes is:
1. Cheating on his dying wife
2. Lying about his child
3. Running for President knowing full well what would happen if any of this came out. Whether or not you think such a revelation should totally derail his Presidency, it would have. Can you imagine dealing with this bullshit while the economy was melting down? Or maybe it would have just derailed his candidacy, handing the country over to McCain and SnowForBrains.
Ash Can
Thank heaven this guy didn’t win the nomination in ’08. He was a walking, talking harbor mine.
cathyx
I hate to think that I actually liked him at one time. But it was only once, then I learned.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Let me be more clear.
Only a pearl clutching tight ass puritan would reflexively say that Edwards or anyone else was a scumbag just because he used hookers.
Don’t you people ever read Savage Love?
Mino
@Schlemizel: Are you joking?? Take LBJ off that second list.
And I’m no morals police. His policies were what I was paying attention to.
TooManyJens
@Brachiator: I don’t think anyone ever said Edwards was a scumbag just because he used hookers. It’s more of a lifetime achievement award.
Anoniminous
@Brachiator:
The next Front Page Pearl Clutching Post will be:
ROCK STARS BOFF THEIR TEENY-BOPPER GOUPIES
AND USE DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also.
Too.
@eemom:
We could talk about the RW Conservative responses to FDR’s National Recovery Act?
Or, if we wanted to go all Professional Lefty, discuss if the Soviet Union was a failed worker’s state or merely a manifestation of state capitalism.
Schlemizel
@Brachiator:
Well I know the doughy pantload’s mommy used to claim she lewinskied LBJ but never heard anything solid. could go either way but then so could his Presidential rating.
St Ronnie? HAHAHAHAHA – you know what Nancy used for birth control? She gave Ronnie a stick of gum!
I stand by my list – the joke holds 8-{D
Liberty60
For some leaders, cheating is a deviation from a character.
For others, it IS their character.
WeeBey
He was always a douche, and anyone who believed the shit he was mouthing about being a liberal REALLY ought to reflect on it.
He never voted like a liberal or did anything in his life that made one think he WAS a liberal.
The douche part is just more annoying.
NCSteve
I kind of figured out not to take what hookers say as gospel truth during that Duke lacrosse team fiasco. I kind of learned not to take what John Edwards says as gospel at about the same time everyone else here did.
Kind of a particularly sordid variation of the “all Cretans are liars” paradox.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
this doesn’t even have enough rpms to hit the middle of the tachometer that measures how much of a scumbag edwards is, or as i like to think of it , was.
sorry, but using uncoerced prostitutes is more honorable than having kids with a mistress you have no intention of marrying. the lying and false pretenses of that sort of relationship is far worse than having sex with a free-will prostitute.
Cluttered Mind
I don’t consider open marriages or having mistresses or even children with a mistress to be inherently immoral acts so long as there’s trust and understanding involved on all sides…and there’s the kicker. Edwards built a whole web of lies around his activities and severely hurt his family in the process and that’s what makes him a scumbag in a way that JFK or Joe Kennedy Sr. never were.
Brachiator
@TooManyJens:
Fair enough.
I agree that he foolishly made himself politically toxic. He was never my first choice for president, but I think he might have made a good Attorney General, before I saw what crappy taste he had in mistresses.
David Koch
BWHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHH
For the people who supported Edwards in 2008 — let it go. Let it go. It’s not your fault. Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect.
You don’t have to reflexively defend Edwards. Lord knows when he was a senator, he never defended you.
Mike R.
I had a lot of faith in this guy, sent him a bunch (for me) of money and was really disappointed when his true persona was exposed. I have no illusions that many, if not most, of our elected officials are just as sleazy but just like the closeted gay self loathers in government who go overboard to mask their true selves, Edwards paraded Elizabeth to countless functions in his effort to disguise the man behind the myth.
No matter how much I might support someone in politics, I’ve decided that I will never trust them to be the person they play except for maybe romney and santorum and newt and boehner and mcconnell and ryan and oh I guess all other republicans. They actually are who they appear to be…..pond scum.
David Koch
@Cluttered Mind:
Serious question, there are two americas, and as a senator, Edwards voted against the 99% time after time, again. How did you reconcile all his votes for the 1% and against the 99%, from the evil bankruptcy bill, repealing Glass-Steagall, and PNTR (not to mention all his neo-con lies in support of killing 100,000 Iraqis – I mean, he actually co-wrote the congressional resolution authorizing war with Lieberman)?
rageahol
@Cluttered Mind: this.
and i wouldnt even say i’d NOT pull the lever for him now. I mean, LBJ was a twelve gallons of bastard in a five gallon paper sack, but he got stuff done, and was on the right side of history.
it’s only because Edwards lost in the first place that we’re even able to look at him now and have regret. and at least for my part, i have no regret for supporting the ideas, and still do today.
so if Edwards or whoever else wants to jump in the race and say the same things, i’d support him, baby out of wedlock or no.
Violet
There was always something about him that made my skin crawl. Even way back when he was Kerry’s running mate. Just never bought the stuff he was trying to sell.
I don’t really care about him using a prostitute. It’s much worse that he lied about his child and lied about his affair while running for president.
David Koch
@Anoniminous:
Obviously you do, you’re commenting on it.
Brachiator
@Schlemizel:
You’re joking right? Robert Caro writes about LBJ’s mistresses in Path to Power.
@Cluttered Mind:
Behind their charm, both JFK and Joe Sr treated some of their mistresses poorly. Compared to them, Edwards is a piker.
I try to be understanding of sexual entanglements, but it is only in Fantasy Polyamory Land that people have open marriages and discuss mistresses without causing anyone pain or anguish.
replicnt6
@David Koch:
Wait, there was a congressional resolution authorizing war with Lieberman? How did I not hear about this? How is he still standing? I suppose Lieberman didn’t vote for cloture.
TooManyJens
@replicnt6:
God, IF ONLY.
Rick Taylor
I wasn’t fooled by Edwards, because I remembered the words of the dearly missed Molly Ivins. When evaluating a political candidate for office, there are three things you must do: look at their record, look at their record, and look at their record.
fasteddie9318
@Cluttered Mind:
Isn’t that part of the problem, aside from his sexual issues, that his rhetoric about the poor was ALL rhetoric?
Rick Taylor
If I remember right, you were aware of that at the time.
Schlemizel
Sorry, I thought I made that obvious. I’ll try harder next time
Heliopause
For what, liking sex with multiple partners? What is this, the nineteenth century?
Granted, the hypocrisy and broken promises in his personal life strike most of us as distasteful, but why do we give a shit? Was Bill Clinton a grade A scumbag?
WeeBey
@Heliopause:
He was a fucking fraud in every sense.
He pretended to be a loving husband just like he pretended to be a liberal.
He was neither.
A Humble Lurker
I’m not going to bust someone for going to a prostitute. However, added to all the other crap he’s pulled….it doesn’t surprise you. And it can make you uneasy considering he was close to the presidential nomination with all these skeleton’s in his closet that could’ve been used against him. Yeesh.
Clime Acts
You’re full of shit on this, Cole. And your showing your true-blue all American puritanism, combined with the other all American trait, panty sniffing.
Nobody’s business on God’s green earth whether or not John Edwards was porking prostitutes.
Did it every occur to anyone here that Elizabeth, due to her illness and grueling cancer treatments had little to no interest in physical intimacy? That John is not the first human in such circumstances to have sought comfort elsewhere?
You sound like a republican in this post.
Also too: I wonder how many married commenters here have availed themselves of the services of sex workers…care to step forward everyone?
Jeffro
I think of him more as The Smiler (a la Ellis) every day…
David Koch
@Heliopause:
Um…. yeah.
Heliopause
@WeeBey:
Got a news flash for ya: they’re all pretending. Also, cartoons aren’t real and Santa is a story for children. Sorry if I burst any bubbles.
Edwards’ voting record was standard issue Dem. Was, that is, he’s old news now, and nobody should care about the rest.
WeeBey
@Clime Acts:
That’s really pathetic. Blame his wife. Nice.
Bruce S
I’m going to brag that I thought John Edwards was a total phony from Day One. The guy reeked of smarm and insincerity. And his “left” primary strategy was a pile of crap he knew he could never deliver on.
Bruce S
“Nobody’s business on God’s green earth whether or not John Edwards was porking prostitutes.”
Certainly the folks who were trying to get McCain-Palin elected would have been clear on that concept.
WeeBey
@Heliopause:
The hell it was. His voting record was as Blue Dog as the day is long, and he never met a campaign donor he wouldn’t suck off for cash.
Yeah, they all play a character. To an extent.
If you wanna pretend he wasn’t a special kind of fucking charlatan, go right ahead. You’re wrong.
WeeBey
@Bruce S:
Thank you.
Clime Acts
@WeeBey:
You’re truly twisted.
No one but you crotch sniffers are “blaming” anybody, because there is no blame to place.
Let me guess: You were raised Catholic.
WeeBey
@Clime Acts:
Let me get this straight.
John Edwards fooled you.
At the time he was having his wife stump for him constantly and playing the part of the dutiful husband — complete with her telling her cancer story on the stump, no less — he was banging some woman, knocked her up and then forced his top campaign aide to say the baby was his. All the while, his wife is literally dying while she campaigns. On top of it, he was apparently also banging prostitutes.
And me noticing makes me a “panty sniffer”?
John Edwards was and is a piece of shit. Full stop.
That you couldn’t see that when the rest of us could is not my fault.
I mean, his now-dead wife and his former top aide have said the same thing, but you soldier on. More power, I guess.
You probably can’t help being that stupid.
Clime Acts
@WeeBey:
Look at you, raging on about it like a true blue Puritanical bible-beater, your nipples hard with self righteousness as you pass judgement.
Newsflash: Far greater men and women than JE have fucked around on their spouses while doing great work in the world. MLK ring a bell?
But you go on raving and judging. Your doing so says much more about you than JE.
Clime Acts
@Cluttered Mind:
YOu have inside documentation? Please share.
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
I think it’s highly likely Edwards was set up. Rielle or whatever her name is was working the plan, baby.
WeeBey
@Clime Acts:
Let me guess. You were an Edwards voter and you think Barack Obama isn’t liberal enough.
You’re just stupid. Stop trying to justify it. You got fooled because you were stupid.
You can admit it, now. It’s OK.
WeeBey
@Clime Acts:
Nevermind. You’re a buffoon.
Clime Acts
@WeeBey:
Hey panty sniffer: Get a clue.
Never voted for or gave money to Edwards. I am just long over American prudery and how it warps our society.
You’re a great example. I read through this thread and you are obsessed with JE’s sex life. What’s at the core of that?
Now get your nose out of the panty pile and look for that clue.
Uncle Cosmo
@Cluttered Mind: Couldn’t have expressed my own situation better myself, & from me, that’s high praise ;).
The Edwards campaign got a couple of hundred bux from me–we had our first meeting for MD volunteers the very night before he withdrew–but frankly I consider I got my money’s worth: someone who was able to grab the attention of the national media & relentlessly shove the campaign’s Overton window leftward for a few crucial months. I would say “thank the FSM for getting him out before he could fatally damage the brand”, but I think the thanx should go to Sens. Kerry and Kennedy, who he met with just before withdrawing–& who I’m guessing had enough evidence about the affair to force him out.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Remember, folks: Clime Acts is the guy who, under a previous nym, suggested that the kids raped by Jerry Sandusky may have enjoyed it.
AxelFoley
LOL at this loser Clime Acts.
Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had!
Ya been took!
Ya been hoodwinked!
Bamboozled!
Led astray!
Run amok!
You didn’t land on John Edwards. John Edwards landed on YOU!
liberal
@Brachiator:
Beyond mere “mistresses,” I thought it was common knowledge that JFK was screwing different women right and left while president. Made Bill Clinton look like a choirboy.
xian
@Heliopause: “Edwards’ voting record was standard issue blue dog Dem.”
fixed that for ya
Paul in NC
I hold no brief for Edwards, but does it not occur to any of you that the Edwards trial is starting next month, that the Millionare Madam is also being investigated by the Justice Department, that this is an unsubstantiated rumor, and that the timing of it is just a little suspicious. It wouldn’t be the first time a US Attorney’s office did a little pre-trial jury pool influencing.