Wendy Button

Opinion contributor

On a May night back in 2012, I sat at a conference room table surrounded by mostly men: The federal prosecutor leading the case against my old friend and boss, former senator John Edwards; a number of federal agents I had met with for more than 36 hours in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C.; a couple of Department of Justice lawyers; one of my spectacular lawyers; and another lawyer on the phone.

The air conditioning was turned off hours before. Fans fired away in the halls and in the room, mixing the smell of take-out containers and fear. The prosecutor sat at the head of the table and I was seated next to him. He asked me about the work that brought me to that hellish North Carolina room.

I had nothing to do with securing payments from billionaire donors to help hide John’s love affair and his daughter. I didn’t cover anything up and was the lone fool who believed the lie — that an aide was the father. Then, for two months during the summer of 2009, I worked on a statement with John to discuss the truth. He never delivered those words we worked on but I believe he still feels the sentiments expressed about his mistakes.

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To say that I was terrified in that room would be an understatement. It was hard to concentrate with the heat, smell and the fans going. Not to mention that everything I had ever done wrong in my life was front and center. That’s what no one warns you about when you are a witness in a trial — there's no hiding your flaws or keeping secrets.

What kept me from passing out was that I was holding on to a small bit of hope that some good would come from this scandal. That all this pain had a purpose and the leaders in Washington would realize that money and politics was the real marriage that needed to end.

That hope vanished in that room.

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The prosecutor in his Carolina drawl asked a series of questions: When I helped John acknowledge his illegitimate child… When he spoke about the payments to support that illegitimate child… When I crafted that statement of paternity for his illegitimate child...

Before I knew what I was doing in a room packed with G-Men, I reached over and touched his forearm.

“I have to stop you,” I said. “All children are legitimate.”

The prosecutor looked at me and winced. He nodded. My God, of course, he said. Why was he using that word?

In that moment, those fans blew the hope I had out of me and out of that room. I knew from then on, the focus would be on the salacious details and not the serious repercussions of our political system in free fall and how this scandal could grow and mutate because of money. The prosecutor was thinking: Baby, affair, morality. I was thinking: Money, money, money. Get it out.

That was more than six years ago. The jury ultimately acquitted John on one count and was hung on the others. It was a novel case, but it set the precedent that money used this way to influence an election was a crime.

When third parties or “fixers” get rid of a problem for a candidate and that money helps a candidate get elected, that official is now vulnerable to bribery and influence. This is and always should be considered a big deal.

But nothing changed after the Edwards trial. The 2012 campaign cost a record $7 billion; 2016 cost another $6.5 billion; and our recent 2018 midterm election cost a record $5 billion. And the list of outside groups to which money flows grows longer by the day — outside groups like 527 Groups and 501(c)s. Meanwhile, the problems we face go unsolved because of money's corrupting force. And if money is the root of all evil, then the American political system is the devil’s playground.

So, the scandal I was involved with felt useless and meaningless. But for the first time since that North Carolina meeting, I have a tiny bit of hope.

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On the morning Michael Cohen entered the federal courthouse in New York for his sentencing hearing, I noticed the bags under his eyes, his ashen skin, and his dark coat was baggy, like he lost some weight. He was holding his daughter up by the arm as she walked with a crutch. No doubt holding himself up a little, too. Trust me, your legs shake when you walk into the courthouse. They had that look of broken people; I had that look walking in, too. But instead of being glad that Cohen was headed to three walls and a barred door, I lowered my head, exhaled, and cried a little.

There were tears because there might finally be a reason to the Edwards scandal. Analysts are right to point out the similarities in the cases. I forgive some of them for butchering basic facts about the Edwards case: intent of the money was expressed in testimony, the story was leaked to The National Enquirer and the elaborate cover up happened weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

In the Edwards case, prosecutors didn’t have a clear line of intent and knowledge that John thought what he was doing was illegal. In the case of the president — with even more evidence likely to come — the intent is looking as clear as a flashing sign on 5th Avenue.

After all of these years, if the purpose of the Edwards scandal is to help show the country and the world how compromised this president is, then it was finally pain with a purpose. Living proof of Aeschylus and his, “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”

So fire up the fans, embrace the fear, and let the drops fall on the heart. Let this be the case. Let this be the one that finally rids our politics of money and makes the "two Americas," one.

Wendy Button is a speechwriter and writer of Emmy nominated and Peabody Award winning television event shows. She has a number of projects in development with producers in Los Angeles and is working on a memoir. Follow Button on Twitter @wendybutton.