CHAPEL HILL (WTVD) — The Edwards house in Orange County is a house divided – divided by infidelity, and former presidential candidate John Edwards acknowledges federal investigators are now probing his affair with Rielle Hunter.
Frank Perry spent 22 years with the FBI and is familiar with political corruption cases. He’s now retired and works for a non-profit in downtown Raleigh called – the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service.
While the feds are not commenting on the investigation, Perry explained to Eyewitness News how the case will proceed.
“It is the FBI that makes a determination of that allegation, to see if it’s credible, specific and coherent enough to proceed,” he said. “I think many people wrongly believe US attorneys generate public corruption cases, but the initiation, the vetting, the working of the case, the FBI is driving that train and it’s done with a true abundance of caution, fairness, and you want to be as firm and fast as you are fair.”
In 2006 and 2007, Edwards’ political action committee paid Hunter $114,000 to produce videos of Edwards. Federal investigators are trying to figure out if those payments violated federal law.
Perry is not connected to the Edwards investigation, but says political corruption cases focus on a federal law – called “honest services fraud”.
“Honest services means that a public official has done something that deprives the citizens of the honest services they expect from public officials,” he explained.
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“It can take some time to build a case,” he said. “And [an] honest services case can take a lot of effort and can be extremely time consuming with respect to going through the financial records and following that money.”
While it appears the investigation is being conducted in Raleigh, Perry says political corruption cases have a lot of oversight – from both FBI headquarters in Washington and the Justice Department in Washington.
May 7, 2009
Fed investigation into “honest services fraud”
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