A cardiologist says former Democratic presidential candidate and senator John Edwards has a life-threatening condition that will require surgery next month, a judge in Greensboro, N.C., announced today.
According to The Associated Press, the judge says she has two letters from the doctor about Edwards' condition. They were revealed, the wire service adds, "during a hearing Friday to consider whether the ex-North Carolina senator would go on trial later this month for alleged campaign finance violations." Edwards' attorneys sought a delay in the proceedings, and the judge postponed the trial to March 26.
Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is accused of using 2008 presidential campaign funds in a bid to cover up his affair with a woman — an affair that was happening as his wife, Elizabeth, was battling cancer that would take her life in December 2010.
He, 58, has said he did not break the law. "There's no question that I have done wrong," Edwards said the day he was indicted, and that he will regret what he did — the affair — "for the rest of my life. ... But I did not break the law and I never thought I was breaking the law."
Update at 3 p.m. ET. More On Edwards' Condition:
"Judge Catherine Eagles did not disclose the medical condition afflicting Edwards," The News & Observer of Raleigh reports. But, it adds that:
"The judge said the doctors wrote that the condition was treatable and the former U.S. presidential candidate had a good chance of success if the course of treatment were followed. 'The letters from Mr. Edwards' physicians are pretty clear this is a serious condition,' Eagles said."
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