As part of her defense in a criminal trial, a former aide to Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R) said she caught the lieutenant governor in “a compromising position” with a female aide shortly before being fired last year, the Miami Herald reports.

“The charges could prove explosive among social conservatives who form
the backbone of the Republican Party and have long admired Carroll.”

Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray “knew in January that associates spent money on behalf of his successful 2010 election that was not properly reported, a violation of campaign finance laws,” the Washington Post reports.

“The disclosure also comes as Gray faces mounting political pressure to make a fuller accounting of his role in the campaign. The city’s political fabric showed signs of fraying Wednesday as three of 12 D.C. Council members became the first elected officials to call for his resignation.”

“I’m not putting my toe anywhere but I’m just going on my favorite radio
show and talking about a subject that’s very dear to me.”

— Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), quoted by Politicker, when asked if he was putting his “toe in the water” for a return to public service.

With a House vote scheduled tomorrow to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over the “Fast and Furious” investigation, an investigation by Fortune magazine suggests that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall in the hands of a Mexican cartel.

“Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies.”

Jon Stewart turns his attention to “Fast and Furious” and Republican outrage over the botched ATF operation.

Best line: “They throw around the term Watergate so much at Fox, you’d think the guy running Fox had been a Nixon operative.”

[Read more…]

Rielle Hunter told ABC News that she and John Edwards “ended their controversial relationship last week, just days after her new book debuted and she went public about how they met, hid their affair and had a baby girl together.”

Said Hunter: “We are a family, but as of the end of last week John Edwards and I are no longer a couple. Not at all.”

She added that she still loves Edwards.

The Daily Beast provides 10 juiciest bits from Rielle Hunter’s new tell-all, What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me.

The Week: “It appears the disgraced two-time presidential candidate still has a little farther to fall before he reaches rock bottom — and Hunter is helping him get there.”

“I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong, and there is no one else responsible for my sins.”

— John Edwards, quoted by CNN, after a judge declared a mistrial in his federal trial on campaign finance charges.

The jury in the John Edwards trial could not reach a verdict on five of six counts of campaign finance violations against him, the AP reports. The judge sent them back for further deliberations.

However, the jury found Edwards not guilty on whether he received an illegal campaign contribution from Bunny Mellon.

Update: The Raleigh News & Observer reports the judge declared a mistrial.

As the jury in the John Edwards trial continues deliberations this week, the New York Post reports the former presidential candidate “flexed his trial-lawyer charm on pretty Andrea Love, 25, at the dive Bowbarr just outside of Chapel Hill, NC, last spring.”

Said Love: “I met him by the bar. I was kind of amused by the situation. He seemed like a charming guy.”

“Love said Edwards tried to schmooze her by telling her he was looking forward to practicing law again — and wanted to represent the poor.”

Gawker: “Leering, accusatory articles such as these are just media voyeurism dressed up as concern trolling. Being very concerned about John Edwards hitting on a 25-year-old is much more perverted than John Edwards hitting on a 25-year-old.”

The Senate Ethics Committee publicly admonished Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) “for an aspect of his role in the scandal that led to the resignation last year of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV),” the Oklahoman reports.

Coburn did not violate the law or Senate rules but the committee said a meeting with Ensign’s former top aide was “improper conduct” that did not meet the “higher standards expected of a U.S. senator.”

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned a year ago after admitting to having sent lewd photos to female followers on Twitter.

But BuzzFeed notes “for one corner of the Internet, Weinergate is very much not over. A group of liberal bloggers believe that Anthony Weiner was blackmailed by Andrew Breitbart into a false confession, and are carrying out a lonely Twitter crusade to spread their theory — in spite of the fact that Weiner himself has never claimed this to be the case.”

Washington Post: “Something exceedingly strange is happening at the John Edwards trial: all four alternate jurors dressed in red shirts Friday. They each wore bright yellow the day before. Coincidence? Few here think so.”

“The demeanor of the alternate jurors and their behavior has become the talk of the courthouse. The alternates enter the courtroom each day giggling among themselves. One of the alternates, an attractive young woman, has been spotted smiling at Edwards and flipping her hair in what seems to some to be a flirtatious manner. On Friday, she wore a revealing red top with a single strap and an exposed right shoulder.”

ABC News: “The juror clearly instigated the exchanges. She smiles at him. He smiles politely back at her. She giggles. He blushes.”

The jurors are in their 6th day of deliberations and will resume next week.

Politico talked with four former politicians “to hear about their lives, jobs and families — and what lessons they’ve learned from their public downfalls. (Needless to say, none are planning to seek office again.)”

“Their stories reveal that even after a devastating scandal, it is possible to pick up the broken pieces and construct what some say is an even better life, often with the help of forgiveness from the public, family and God. But if there’s one thing from their old lives that some of these ex-politicians say they still miss, it’s the chauffeurs that used to drive them around — one of the many perks of being in office.”

Cheri Young, the wife of an ex-aide to John Edwards, testified that the former presidential candidate “asked the couple to hide an affair he was having and justified using wealthy donors’ money to do it,” the AP reports.

On a phone call, Edwards “emphasized the need to preserve his campaign and keep the affair from his wife, Elizabeth” and made the plan sound “as if it was for the good of the country.”

Cheri Young, the wife of former political aide Andrew Young, will resume testifying in John Edwards’ trial “and might add new wrinkles to a story that veers between tragedy and farce with each disclosure,’ the Raleigh News and Observer reports.

The questions: “Why did she agree to help her husband hide Edwards’ affair by depositing huge checks under her maiden name? How could she agree to let her husband falsely claim paternity for the child Edwards fathered with Hunter? What was she thinking by taking her three children along as she, her husband and Hunter hop-scotched across the country trying to escape National Enquirer reporters?”

“The only politics we understand is scandal, and the only scandal we understand is sex.”

— Bill Maher, quoted by Gawker, on his HBO show last night.