Fred Baron, humanitarian

I share Ace of Spades' profound skepticism about the role of John Edwards' campaign finance director Fred Baron in the Rielle Hunter affair. Baron says he paid to move Edwards' mistress and the alleged supposed make-believe father of her child to California (a) for purely charitable reasons and (b) without Edwards' knowledge:

He said she and another campaign aide, Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Ms. Hunter's child, were being dogged by tabloid reporters who believed she had an affair with Mr. Edwards and fathered the child. . . .
He said Mr. Edwards did not know about the arrangement.
"The money was purely and simply to get them out of North Carolina and to get them into a stable place," he said. "They were unable to afford a second home. It was to give them the ability to live somewhere where they wouldn't be harassed."

Why am I thinking of words like "consigliere" and "hush money" here? And why am I reminded of Vernon Jordan arranging for Monica Lewinsky to get a job in New York?

Beyond that, if Edwards wasn't the baby's father, and if he and Hunter had called it quits in March 2007, why was Edwards visiting Hunter and her baby at the Beverly Hilton in July 2008? Just a courtesy visit? "Hey, Rielle, sorry I didn't make it to the baby shower . . ."