John Edwards has now officially been put on notice.
The family of Rielle Hunter wants Edwards to put up or shut up.
UPDATES to follow at the end of story, throughout August 9, 2008.
UPDATE #1 - 1345 EDT August 9 2008 - Class Action?
UPDATE #2 - pending
After a televised interview with the ex-presidential candidate painted everyone, including his unnamed mistress Rielle Hunter as somehow sinister. Edwards, caught leaving the Beverly Hilton after a meeting with the Enquirer's reporters on July 22 also took shots at unnamed "supermarket tabloids."
The Enquirer published it's response to Edwards by labeling his interview a "confession". [JOHN EDWARDS ADMITS AFFAIR!]
As far as being the father of Hunter's love child, you might as well go all the way now, Johnny Boy.
Submit to a DNA test.
NOW, ABC News is reporting that the Mistress' Family Challenges Edwards to Take DNA Test.
Hunter's sister, Melissa, has been reported by ABC News in an Enquirer-type sub-headline as saying, "'Stop Bad-Mouthing My Sister'".
ABC also quoted Hunter's sister as saying, "Somebody must stand up and defend my sister," she said. "I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister,"--not naming Edwards, in the same way he avoided naming Rielle Hunter in his ABC appearance.
"Ironically, now, its John Edwards who's the one making allegations," wrote one reader, "without offering any more proof than his word--and he's shown how much we can all trust that."
UPDATE #1: 1345 EDT Class Action against Edwards?
Ted Frank at Overlawyered wonders, "Where's a trial lawyer when you need one?" [Yes, I’m being facetious]:
Where’s the trial lawyer bringing a class action on behalf of all of the people who were defrauded when they gave money to John Edwards’s presidential campaign? It’s certainly a much more plausible claim of causation, reliance, and financial injury than the typical class action.
If Frank were the prosecutor in the court of public opinion, Edwards' interview would get 30 days in the electric chair.
"Alas, ABC didn’t ask the right follow-up questions, such as how Edwards thought meeting Hunter in a hotel room would help keep the story quiet."
Frank has other penetrating questions for Edwards. We'll let him present them.
UPDATE #2 - at DBKP.com John Edwards Scandal: Sister Asks Edwards to Stop Bad-mouthing Rielle Hunter - UPDATED
by Mondoreb