John Edwards’ Daughter Cate to Testify He Loved His Wife
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Steve Exum/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — The most difficult testimony John Edwards may have to endure in his trial is scheduled for Tuesday, when his daughter Cate is expected to take the stand and tell the court how much her father loved her mother.
Cate Edwards, 30, has been Edwards’ most visible supporter throughout the month-long trial, but even she left his side when the testimony has concentrated on the hurt that her father’s affair caused her mother.
John Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations to hide his mistress Rielle Hunter, and later their baby daughter, during his quest for the 2008 presidential nomination. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Edwards’ defense team has argued that the money was not intended for his political campaign, but meant to hide his affair from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer. Testimony on Monday depicted Elizabeth Edwards as a woman with a “volcanic” temper who feared humiliation for herself and her children because of her husband’s infidelity.
Cate Edwards will be expected to corroborate her father’s version of events.
“I think we will expect to hear more details from Cate how he loved Elizabeth, how he tended to her in her final days,” Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, the Washington bureau chief for People magazine and someone close to the Edwards family, told ABC News. “You will hear more about that that was his primary concern in hiding the affair, protecting his family.”
“Cate told me not too long ago, I’m the child of two parents… And she is going to stick by him. She said that is what families do. She believes he committed no crime,” Westfall said.
Westfall noted that Cate Edwards, who is a lawyer, was recently married and lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband. But she has returned to North Carolina for her father.
“She’s a newlywed, and her husband lives in D.C. full time. Cate has packed up her life and went to down Chapel Hill to help her dad out with her two younger siblings. She is really kind of head of the family right now, taking her mother’s place, coordinating the kids’ schedules. And she is working it out with her dad. They are very close still, you know,” Westfall said.
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