The 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, who ran with losing presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, was accused of violating campaign finance laws during his failed 2008 campaign by accepting nearly $1 million from two donors to conceal an extramarital affair with a campaign worker, and her subsequent pregnancy with his child.

Prosecutors charged that the donors — wealthy banking heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, now 101, and the late Fred Baron — provided more than $900,000 in funds to Edwards aide Andrew Young, who hid the mistress, Rielle Hunter, from his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, and from the press for months while he was running for President.

Elizabeth Edwards, now deceased, was dying of cancer at the time of the affair.

Edwards, 58, faced up to 30 years in prison had he been convicted on all counts. The jury acquitted him on the weakest of six counts against him, the only count on which they were able to reach a verdict.

Although unlikely, it was unclear as of late-night Thursday whether prosecutors would seek a new trial. The mistrial was considered a major victory for Edwards, who will now get to keep his law license, leaving open the opportunity to return to legal practice where he made a name for himself as a record-setting trial lawyer before entering elective politics.

On Thursday, following the end of the trial, flanked by his parents and eldest daughter Cate outside on the courthouse steps, Edwards thanked the jury for their hard work, then added:

Some 400,000 visitors flock to his California museum each year, buying photographs, biographies and his favorite candy, Jelly Bellys, in an attempt to get a piece of the nation’s 40th President.

“But now, the sale of a very personal effect of the late president is stirring a controversy,” the Wall Street Journal reported on its website Wednesday — his blood, a vial of which topped $14,000 in an online auction scheduled to end Thursday.
 
READ THE DETAILS IN THE MAY 24th EDITION OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL  (click here)
 
UPDATE:  AUCTION CANCELED, REAGAN’S BLOOD TO BE KEPT “OUT OF PUBLIC HANDS”

In the wake of intense publicity and a complaint from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the European auction house that was offering a vial reportedly containing dried residue of the late President’s blood has backed down and officially canceled the auction.

The seller will instead donate the sample to the Reagan Foundation, whose director expressed thanks for ensuring that the blood “remains out of public hands,” as first reported late morning Thursday by the Washington Post.

FOR DETAILS, SEE THE COMPLETE WASHINGTON POST STORY  (click here)  plus the auction house statement canceling the sale  (click here)