FEDS Investigating John Edwards

Former Sen. John Edwards could face up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if an investigation into his campaign finances yields an indictment, a guilty verdict and the maximum penalty -- an outcome that some observers say couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

....Feds are combing through Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign checkbook to see if there's more to the story of his payments to his former mistress, Reille Hunter, who was hired by the campaign to produce a Web-based film about the former North Carolina senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate.

Edwards confirmed last year that his political action committee paid more than $100,000 to Hunter, who gave birth in February 2008 to a daughter widely rumored to be the ex-senator's. Edwards admitted last summer that he and Hunter had an affair while she was working on a video of him for his presidential campaign and while his wife was battling breast cancer. He insisted he is not the father of 1-year-old Frances Hunter, who does not have a father listed on her California birth certificate.

....Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards is releasing a book next week that says when she learned about the affair in 2006, she threw up and then begged her husband unsuccessfully not to run for president.

FOX News senior legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said Edwards' decision to go against his wife both within their marriage and as a career decision suggests Edwards "has a very high view of himself, which should be irrelevant to whether or not he's prosecuted.

"But I think he thought he wouldn't get caught or that his charm and electability would overcome this. As it turned out, he rose like a rocket and fell like a stick. His public reputation is less than zero. I can't imagine him being involved in public life again," Napolitano said.

Malignant pond scum...