let me go quickly to hampton delinger. what always stunned me is they let him stay on, let him proceed with his case, let the republican go on with a democratic administration. what was the basis for that, just not wanting to look bad or constructing a good, strong prosecution, which turned out not to be one? >> sure, i'll defer pete williams reporting on that. i think the tough call now is for the obama administration. for everything that pete said plus these two facts, one, this case was really well tried by the federal prosecutors. robert higdon pr from d.c., dav harbaugh as well. the key issue here was always john edwards to be the first person prosecuted for this so he couldn't have had criminal intent. the federal election commission was not on board with this prosecution, they couldn't find a violation, so the prosecution could have had a better reason for a conviction, they didn't get it. >> all you have to do is show one purpose of giving this money would be to help his campaign, right? >> that's right. and the st