joining me now is melanie sloan, executive director of citizens responsibility and ethics in washington and alan derschowiz. let me start with you, al derschowiz, this is a fall from grace for a man who could have been three or four years ago president of this country. are we going to see john edwards facing a trial for which he could be convicted here? >> he'll face a trial unless his lawyers plea bargain. this is a sleazy indictment. this reads more like an expose from the ""national enquirer"" than a legal document. it's filled with this stuff about the personal immorality and personal life, much of which is very irrelevant and very short on legal analysis and legal theory. for example, it says that part of the reason for the payment was to, quote, to facilitate the extra-marital affair. to facilitate the affair. what does it have to do with the campaign or making him president? and it quotes the law as saying that it doesn't cover payments that would be made irrespective of the candidacy. his defense is going to be that these are friends who were protecting him from exposure because

melanie sloan, what is the next step on this? is there an organization that actually is going to look into this beyond reporters? >> well, i feel confident that irs will take a harder look at this. again, mr. gingrich is a known quantity to theist and they really frown on the mixing of political and campaign activities and charitable activities. and this charity which really bears none of the hallmarks of a real charity doesn't seem to be involved in any real activities, and in fact it's sending misleading fundraisers to people asking for money helping a charity that doesn't have a charitable purpose. >> melanie sloan, thank you, shannon travis as well. to house speaker gingrich and other candidates through the eyes of a skeptic, very sharp and funny skeptic, bill maher, i spoke to him earlier tonight. >> bill, you've been pretty hard on the field of gop candidates so far. i think you said at one point you've seen and i quote more appealing lineups on an episode of "law and order special victim unit". did you change your mind at

melanie sloan, appreciate it. dana bash, you have been covering this from the beginning. thank you very much. anthony weiner said he'll be going to rehab "to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person". i spoke earlier with dr. drew pinsky adiction expert. >> anthony weiner has talked about going away for some sort of treatment. is there rehab for -- i'm not sure what the treatment would actually be. is that just kind of a -- there's a catch all excuse now i'm going to go to rehab and disappear for a couple of weeks and come back and make a comeback. is there something that he could be treated for? >> well, first address the rehab, that's a tern that really doesn't have any meaning anymore. is he going to a psychiatric hospital and getting treatment? is he going to treatment for sexual adiction or drug addiction? he's going somewhere. going to rehab. now, i don't know representative weiner obviously. but people that behave like this, i have treated many, many times. we tend to conceptualize these things as sexual addictions. yes, they can go away for intensiv

joining us now, danna bash and melanie sloan of citizens for ethics and responsibility in washington. danna, was this resignation unavoidable? was there another way he could have handed it that he could have survived? >> well, i talk today some of his colleagues as i have over the past several weeks particularly today, and they say, yes, actually. the way that he hand eld it was atrocious. there's really no other way to say it. never mind what the core of this which was sending lewd photographs of himself that kept trickling out over and over and over over the past couple of weeks, but most importantly it's the fact that he just was so not truthful about the fact that he had done it, the fact that he not only said that he was hacked, which is not true then he didn't answer our questions, he didn't tell the truth and actually blatantly lied to in the media. but even more importantly to his colleagues. that really as one of his colleagues said to me, it's always the coverup. and the coverup at this point and the fact that he didn't tell the truth really did him in. >> but melanie, he al