Rielle Hunter
Gossip

Bristol Palin may be pregnant, but the political scandal of the year still belongs to John Edwards and his now-admitted mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Despite Edwards campaign aide Andrew Young's claim that he, not the former North Carolina Senator, fathered the baby of Hunter, he hasn't given her a cent, according to research from the National Enquirer, which broke the story.

The 44-year-old Hunter is still getting cash from somewhere, but no child support or other monetary compensation has been made by Young.

Andrew Young said last year - when Rielle Hunter was seven months pregnant and the scandal first broke - that he was the baby's father.

But when Rielle gave birth in late February, no father was listed on the birth certificate of her daughter, the adorable Frances Quinn Hunter (above).

When the Hunter-Edwards connection was first being uncovered, Andrew Young sprung into action, presumably under Edwards' command - helping Rielle leave N.Y. City and hide out for a while in North Carolina.

Now Andrew Young has fallen completely off the planet.

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Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' infamous mistress, talked to Extra last year while promoting the "webisodes" she created for the Democrat.

You know, the really short, insignifcant web videos she got paid $114,000 to make because she happened to be banging the candidate?

Right. This is not that interview, but rather clips of it spliced together with faux questions from 236.com, a division of The Huffington Post.

See how Rielle Hunter really feels about John Edwards ...

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards promised his mistress Rielle Hunter they will reunite ... once his cancer-stricken wife dies.

That's according to the latest report from the National Enquirer, which first broke the scandal of their affair - and possible love child - in late 2007.

Since then, the celebrity gossip tabloid has never let up, forcing Edwards to finally admit the affair August 8. But many, many questions linger.

The magazine also reports that Rielle Hunter refuses to make John Edwards take a paternity test, which he offered (perhaps facetiously) to take in his recent "tell-all" interview, because she fears it will jeopardize their future together.

John Edwards denies he is the father of Hunter's daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, who was born on February 27.

Former aide Andrew Young has claimed paternity (and virtually vanished) while another Edwards associate, Fred Baron, has been paying Hunter off.

But Edwards remains in contact with Rielle Hunter even now.

The North Carolina politician called her after his August 8 confession on ABC, reportedly telling her: "We'll be together when Elizabeth is gone."

The day prior to John Edwards' admission to an affair with Rielle Hunter, she and her six-month old daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, were secretly flown out of the U.S. on a chartered Lear jet, the National Enquirer says.

The private flight cost $50,000 and was paid for by John Edwards’ pals. The Hunters were the lone passengers aboard the eight-hour flight.

Their destination: St. Croix in the Virgin Islands!

There, Rielle Hunter and the baby stayed in an oceanfront home owned by controversial trial lawyer Lee Rohn, another close friend of Edwards.

Rohn offered only a terse “No comment!” when questioned about it.

John Edwards insists he is not the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. One of his close staff members, Andrew Young, is claiming paternity, yet Frances' California birth certificate lists no father, and many questions linger.

After the celebrity gossip tabloid discovered Hunter's island hideaway with Rohn, she was moved to a nearby motel on the island before returning to Santa Barbara, Calif., on August 17, according to another source.

An Enquirer reporter then saw Rielle back in her California home, which is being paid for by Edwards’ former finance chairman, Fred Baron.

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John Edwards' former finance chairman is emerging as the point man in the plan to conceal his affair with Rielle Hunter, according to reports.

Fred Baron, a high-profile Dallas lawyer, has strong ties to the attorneys now representing Edwards' infamous mistress, as well as to Andrew Young, the former candidate's campaign aide who claims he fathered her baby.

Rielle Hunter's New York lawyer, Robert Gordon, was unsuccessfully sued on a racketeering complaint along with Fred Baron and his law firm in 2001.

Andrew Young's Washington lawyer, Pamela Marple, defended them.

Fred Baron (above, left) has acknowledged personally giving Rielle Hunter (above, right) and Young - who actually lived together along with Young's wife in the same house at one point - money to get out of North Carolina.

The Edwards campaign hired Hunter, despite limited experience, to produce a series of short videos about the Democratic presidential candidate.

Edwards (seen with Andrew Young, below), in part with donations from Baron's wife, reportedly paid Hunter an additional $14,000 from his political action committee for 100 hours of unused footage shot for the videos.

That came in addition to more than $100,000 paid to Rielle Hunter for the "Webisodes," which were ultimately yanked from Edwards' site.

John Edwards with Andrew Young, his former campaign aide who says he fathered the child of Rielle Hunter. But what do Young and Fred Baron really know?

The man claiming to be the father of John Edwards' mistress' five-month-old baby has remained quiet since the former Democratic U.S. Senator admitted to his affair with Rielle Hunter but denied fathering her love child.

No one even knows what Andrew Young looks like!

Just the same, he's been laying low but sticking by his claim that he's the father. Some close to the scandal say that Andrew Young is being used as a fall guy by Edwards - and is not the father of Rielle's baby.

A former well-placed campaign worker, who claims to have inside knowledge of the relationship with John Edwards during the time Rielle Hunter, a videographer, was working for his campaign, told FOX News in an email:

"There was no relationship between her and Andrew Young."

Frances Quinn Hunter, called Quinn, was born on February 27, 2008. No father is listed on the child's birth certificate in California.

Who put the baby inside Rielle Hunter, seen here late last year?

In December, when the National Enquirer reported that a then-pregnant Rielle Hunter was having an affair with Edwards, Andrew Young released a statement through his attorney Pamela Marple claiming he was the father.

"Senator Edwards knew nothing about the relationship between these former co-workers, which began when they worked together in 2006."

But questions continue to swirl about who is the real father.

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Rush Limbaugh has opined that John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter is the fault of Elizabeth Edwards ... for misusing her mouth. Yes, really.

We'll let you sound off on that. In the meantime, People has a found out more on the back story of Rielle Hunter, Edwards' mysterious mistress.

The 44-year-old videographer and former campaign aide has gone through many personal transformations - almost as many as she has names.

Rielle Hunter went from an NYC party girl to an aspiring actress in LA, to a New-Age spiritualist of sorts, then to a political operative.

Rielle Hunter (a.k.a. Lisa Hunter, a.k.a. Lisa Druck) then and now.

The hilariously-named Pigeon O'Brien, a music publicist who's known Rielle for 20 years, says she's most puzzled by her latest role.

O'Brien was especially upset by the recent negative comments Rielle Hunter made about John's wife, Elizabeth Edwards, in Newsweek.

"The person I'm seeing now confuses me," O'Brien lamented. "Where is the Buddhist Rielle? She was a very grounded, spiritual, beautiful person."

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It takes a pretty huge jackass to attempt to turn John Edwards into the victim after sleeping with Rielle Hunter and then covering it up.

Not to worry, though: Rush Limbaugh is up to the task.

On the August 12 broadcast of his national radio show, Rush Limbaugh said of former Sen. John Edwards' extramarital affair:

"I've got a theory about the motivations ... We know - we've been told that Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards... Ergo, if Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards, is it likely that she thinks she knows better than he does what his speeches ought to contain and what kind of things he ought to be doing, strategy wise? Could it have been her decision to keep going with the campaign? In other words, could it be that she doesn't shut up? That's as far as I'm going to go."

But it wasn't as far as he went.

Rush Limbaugh later added, "It just seems to me that John Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk."

In case it wasn't clear what he meant, Limbaugh elaborated in a subsequent segment: "My theory, that I just explained to you about why - you know, what could have John Edwards' motivations been to have the affair with Rielle Hunter, given his wife is smarter than he is and probably nagging him a lot about doing this, and he found somebody that did something with her mouth other than talk."

Wow.

To sum up, the blowhard (who's thrice divorced, BT-dubs) believes that if Elizabeth Edwards channeled her inner Antonella Barba more often, John would never have strayed into the arms of Rielle Hunter. It's an interesting theory.

We could go on for pages about this, but instead, we'll turn it over to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. Follow the jump for his take on Rush ...

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John Edwards admitting his affair with Rielle Hunter on ABC's Nightline last Friday confirmed the National Enquirer's nearly year-long investigation of his unethical conduct - which Edwards still says is "99 percent" false.

Well, now the Enquirer has uncovered more information that suggests its reporting is anything but - and Edwards' story is shaky at best.

"John Edwards is still lying!" a close source to the former candidate said. "He lied to his wife, to Rielle, and through his TV interview!"

Videographer Rielle Hunter was paid big bucks - over $100,000 - to film just four short web videos of then-candidate John Edwards in 2006.

Other potential John Edwards-Rielle Hunter revelations today:

• It appears Edwards secretly visited Rielle Hunter and their alleged love child three separate times at the Beverly Hilton hotel in L.A. this year - two more than he claims. He was caught red-handed July 21.

• Edwards did confess the affair to his wife, as he claimed on TV, in 2006. But he then restarted it, and depending on who you believe, was still sexually involved with Rielle when she became pregnant.

• Despite Edwards' heartfelt offers to take a paternity test (which Rielle Hunter conveniently said she's not going to allow), he has apparently refused several offers to submit his DNA to one in the past.

• Despite his denials, Edwards was very much aware that his former finance committee chairman, Fred Baron, was funneling money to Rielle.

• Moreover, Edwards operatives are still paying off Rielle Hunter, who was whisked away on a private jet two days before he confessed!

• Federal investigators are considering launching an investigation into John Edwards' use of campaign funds.

Amazing stuff. Stay tuned, we have a hunch this isn't over yet.

Where to even begin?

John Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, once appeared in movies starring Denzel Washington, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Inside Edition reports.

Rielle Hunter – real name Lisa Druck – is credited as Lisa Hunter in 1987's Overboard, starring Russell and Hawn, and 1991's Ricochet, in which she had a small role as a reporter opposite Washington, John Lithgow and Ice-T.

She also appeared in an indie flick titled Chicago Poems.

Meanwhile, Rielle Hunter's two sisters, Roxanne Druck in North Carolina and Melissa Druck in Nevada, have shamelessly cashed in spoken out about her to Entertainment Tonight and The Insider in interviews airing Wednesday.

The only known photo of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter together.

"I've seen the pictures of the baby - and she looks like John Edwards," says Roxanne. "She's got his eyes, jaw line and lips, but she does have Rielle's nose... My niece is not a bastard child, I just don't think it's right."

THG NOTE: So an infant apparently resembles John Edwards... but is not a bastard, despite being fathered by a man married to someone else?

Roxanne Druck also said the former presidential hopeful's "admission" of his affair with Rielle Hunter was vague and sketchy at best.

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