Edwards campaign funds under review

His once-prominent political career is buried and the turmoil of his marriage is playing out in public. Now, John Edwards is facing a federal inquiry.

The two-time Democratic presidential candidate acknowledged Sunday that investigators were assessing how he spent his campaign funds -- a subject that could carry his extramarital affair from the tabloids to the courtroom.

Edwards’ political action committee paid more than $100,000 for video production to the firm of the woman with whom Edwards had an affair.

The former North Carolina senator said in a carefully worded statement that he was cooperating.

“I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly,” Edwards said. “However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true.

“We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter.”

Edwards focused his comment on campaign funds, but he also had a range of other fundraising organizations -- including two nonprofits and a poverty center at his alma mater -- that have come under scrutiny.

Chief among them was the PAC that paid Rielle Hunter’s company for several months in 2006 for Web videos that documented Edwards’ travels and advocacy in the months leading up to his 2008 presidential campaign.

The committee also paid her firm an additional $14,086.50 on April 1, 2007.

Edwards acknowledged the affair with Hunter last year, months after dropping his presidential bid.

At the time of the 2007 payment, the PAC had only $7,932.95 in cash on hand, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

That day, according to the records, Edwards’ presidential campaign paid the PAC $14,034.61 for what is listed as a “furniture purchase.”

Willfully converting money from a political action committee for personal use is a federal crime.

The furniture money was one of just five contributions to the political action committee between April 1 and June 30, 2007.

The other four were on June 30, the last day of the reporting period, including a $3,000 contribution from the wife of Edwards’ national finance chairman, Fred Baron.

Baron, a wealthy Dallas-based trial attorney, said last year that he quietly sent money to Hunter to help her resettle in California.

He said that no campaign funds were used and that Hunter was not working for the campaign when he started giving her money.

Edwards has said he was unaware of the payments.

Baron died of cancer in October.

U.S. Atty. George Holding has declined to comment and said he wouldn’t confirm or deny an investigation.