New Obama Friend is Edwards’ Money Man
Also a Friend of John Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter
Fred Baron’s ties to the DNC run deep. With John Edwards exiting the race his former National Finance Chair in ‘04 and ‘08 has turned his attention to Barack Obama. With Baron’s admitting he paid money to Edwards’ ex-mistress to move across the country to have a baby, we wondered, does Obama need this type of “new friend”?
Baron has been seen hobnobbing with high-powered Dems in Denver during the DNC convention. According to the Dallas Morning News, Baron isn’t acting in any “official” capacity, only as a “helper” to Obama’s campaign.
DBKP looked into the kind of “help” Baron’s known for in the DNC and the “help” he’s recently admitted to the MSM: secret payments to John Edwards’ ex-mistress, Rielle Hunter.
According to author Lowell Ponte, Baron began “funding” candidates in 1996, contributing “soft money” to the Democratic party and candidates. Baron’s association with the Clintons in ‘98 included a fundraiser that netted a cool $500,000. A few days later Bill Clinton was a guest at Baron’s Aspen, Colorado, home. The Dallas, TX based Baron was equally busy in the state of North Carolina helping John Edwards beat an incumbent for a seat in the Senate.
Baron was elected President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America in 2000. According to Ponte, Baron, Baron’s wife Lisa Blue, and others linked to Baron’s former firm, Baron and Budd, donated nearly 2.5 million to Dem candidates and committees. Some speculate that Baron’s protege, John Edwards, a first time Senator with no prior public service, wound up on Al Gore’s VP short list in 2000 because of Baron.
Baron did not yet own the entire Senate, just the Democratic minority. But one member who had taken his money and done his bidding was Senator John Edwards, whom Baron had begun to see as the racehorse he could ride into the Oval Office of the White House. Edwards had even gone to the mat and successfully blocked a bill that would have impeded trial lawyer lawsuits against companies when people there were injured by a terrorist attack. Edwards has defended the trial lawyer ideal of allowing all lawsuits all of the time, without limit.
Baron and a cadre of other wealthy trial attorney friends backed Edwards’ 2004 bid for the President after internal polling in North Carolina predicted voters were unlikely to re-elect the first time Senator. Baron served as Edwards’ national campaign finance chairman, the same position he held in Edwards’ 2008 Presidential run. Baron was also named co-chair of Kerry-Edwards 04′ Victory Committee.
Baron’s “fundraising” role has been largely ignored by the MSM even after Baron admitted he had been secretly “supporting” John Edwards ex-mistress Rielle Hunter.
Edwards publicly admitted to an affair on ABC’s Nightline on August 8.
WOODRUFF: There are reports that you have tried to cover up. They call it alleged hush money. That there was money paid to try, to cover up this affair. Was there?
EDWARDS: Uh, this is what I can tell you. I’ve never paid a dime of money to any of the people that are involved. I’ve never asked anybody to pay a dime of money, never been told that any money’s been paid. Nothing has been done at my request. So if the allegation is that somehow I participated in the payment of money — that is a lie. An absolute lie, which is typical of these types of publications.
WOODRUFF: I do need to tell you though through ABC investigation there has been evidence, or we’ve been told that there, about $15,000 a month has been paid to Miss Hunter, so that she could actually live out in California. In fact that money was from Fred Baron, who was your national finance chair. Is that correct?
EDWARDS: I don’t know. I told you just a moment ago, I know absolutely nothing about this.
WOODRUFF: You never even heard about that before?
EDWARDS: I’ve heard about it from reporters like you just in the last few days. It’s the first I hear anything about it.
On the same day that Edwards admitted his affair on ABC, the Dallas Morning News published Baron’s version of his involvement in Edwards’ affair. Baron claimed he had “helped” Edwards’ ex-mistress and John Edwards’ long time friend and former Director of Operations, Andrew Young, relocate to another “community” because the two who were being “hounded” by “tabloid reporters”. Young had claimed in December that he, not Edwards, was the father of the baby.
Baron claimed that he and Edwards had never spoken about the affair despite the almost decade long relationship between he and Edwards, the vast amount of money poured into Edwards’ campaign coffers by Baron, and the fact that Baron was currently serving as Edwards’ national campaign finance Chairman at the time of the affair.
The National Enquirer reported in December that the pregnant Hunter had been relocated to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to an upscale gated community known as Governor’s Club. Hunter was not only living less than five miles from Edwards’ campaign headquarters but also just a few blocks from Young and his wife and small children.
Baron claimed he had come to Young and Hunter’s rescue after the two were being hounded by “tabloid reporters”. It was later learned that Hunter, Young, and Young’s family moved to an expensive area in Santa Barbara, where they all lived together in the same home. Baron purportedly had “financed” the move. Hunter failed to put Young’s name on her daughter’s birth certificate.
Edwards was forced to admit to the affair after Enquirer reporters caught the ex-Senator sneaking out Hunter’s Beverly Hilton Hotel room on July 21 at 2:40 in the morning.
Baron later claimed he “helped” Young and Hunter move because Enquirer reporters had stalked Young’s children at their school and “photographed” them at a “playground”.
Young, who is on record contacting the local Sheriff’s office when Enquirer reporters showed up at his door in December, failed to contact the police when the tabloid reporters allegedly followed his children to their school and playground.
National Enquirer editor David Perel told DBKP that this incident “did not happen”, that the Enquirer was the “only one” on the story at that point. Perel said that “it makes no sense” regarding Baron’s accusation that Enquirer reporters followed Young’s children to their school and playground saying “why would we (Enquirer) want to photograph Young’s kids?”
But that may be the least of it all.
Continue reading: Obama’s New Friend, Fred Baron
by LBG
Source: Obama’s New Friend, Fred Baron
