GREENSBORO, N.C. – After years of investigation, denials and delays, jury selection began Thursday for the criminal trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards.

Edwards sat at the defense table as about 180 potential jurors filed into a Greensboro, N.C., courtroom. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Eagles asked Edwards to stand and face them.

The trial had been scheduled to begin in late January, but was delayed after Edwards’ attorneys told the judge he had a serious heart problem that required treatment.

Edwards faces six criminal counts related to nearly $1 million in secret payments made by two campaign donors to help hide the married Democrat’s pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008.

“This is not a case about whether Mr. Edwards was a good husband or politician,” the judge said. “It’s about whether he violated campaign finance laws. … The Constitution says trial by jury, not trial by Internet or trial by gossip.”

Eagles emphasized to the potential jurors their role in the upcoming trial and ordered them not to tell anyone, even their families, that they had been called for the Edwards case. She also advised them to put out of their minds any media coverage they had seen and to ignore any legal dramas they might have seen on television, because such shows may mischaracterize the law or how a courtroom operates.