Last night on the Larry King show, National Enquirer Editor David Perel dropped another bombshell -- that John Edwards has had three meeting with Rielle Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Perel has previously claimed that there were two meetings with Hunter, the one that Edwards has confirmed happened in July and one around the beginning of June.
So when did Edwards see Hunter aside from June and July? I think the date might be March 20th, 2008. Looking into Edward's schedule, he appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on that date. The Tonight Show tapes at the NBC studios in Burbank, California and usually wraps taping a little after five o'clock. Burbank is about a half hour from the Beverly Hilton hotel.
This may answer some questions that have been raised about the infamous 'Spy Cam' baby photos. For example, some have wondered about Edwards wearing a short sleeved shirt in the photo while reporters from the Enquirer stated that Edwards was wearing a long sleeved shirt when they confronted him at the Beverly Hilton. A careful reading of the Enquirer story that ran with the photos, however, shows that Enquirer never said the Spy Cam photo was from the July meeting.
In his ABC interview that aired this past Friday, Edwards gave an unusually parsed answer when asked about the photo.
EDWARDS: The picture in the tabloid. I have no idea what that picture is.
WOODRUFF: But you've seen it right?
EDWARDS: I did see it and I cannot make any sense out of that. When I went to this meeting you've already asked me about, uh, I was not wearing a t-shirt, I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I don't know who that picture -- I don't know if that picture is me, it could well be, it looks like me. I don't know who that baby is, I have no idea what that picture is.
I've spoken with sources close to the Edwards camp who told me that Edwards hadn't worn the light blue shirt seen in the baby photo 'in months' and who said that the photos of the baby was also months old. Significantly, these sources didn't deny that the baby was Rielle Hunter's, just that it was an older picture. This would be consistent with a March 20th meeting date.
Wikipedia says that Rielle Hunter's birthday is March 20th.
I spoke with National Enquirer editor David Perel who stated that the Enquirer has dates for all three meetings and plans to publish them in upcoming issues. Mr. Perel said he would neither confirm or deny my speculation about March 20th as being the date of a meeting between Hunter and Edwards.
UPDATE: I was just a guest on The Young Turks radio show. I mentioned the March 20th date and the host of show and Huffington Post blogger Cenk Uygur told me that he ran into Edwards on March 20th, jogging outside the Beverly Hilton hotel. Edwards said he was staying at the Beverly Hilton and that he was appearing on the Tonight Show later that night.