The former campaign finance chairman for John Edwards said Wednesday that he thought tabloid reports that Edwards had an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter were untrue when he paid to relocate her and another campaign worker and his family to California last year.

Dallas lawyer Fred Baron said in e-mail to The News & Observer, "I will restate what I have previously stated on one point: I learned of the affair only a few weeks ago and had previously presumed that the 'tabloid' stuff was all bogus."

The statement from Baron follows several days of questions raised by a former associate of Hunter's and her sister, who challenged Edwards' timeline of the relationship.

In an interview Friday with ABC's "Nightline" program, Edwards admitted to having had an affair with Hunter but denied being the father of her daughter, born Feb. 27 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Former campaign aide Andrew Young, who with Baron's assistance moved to the Santa Barbara area last year with his wife and three children, released a statement online last year saying he was the father of Hunter's then-unborn child.

In his ABC interview, Edwards said the affair did not start until after Edwards' political action committee hired Hunter to film four videos posted online. The first check cut to Hunter's film company, Midline Groove Productions, was written July 5, 2006, for $12,500, according to campaign finance reports.

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