Huma Abedin Said To Suffer Emotional Breakdown While most of the attention in the past week has been on Hillary Clinton, and her reaction to the “shocking” election outcome, the reality is that Hillary’s life is set with or without the presidency, and absent some major FBI-related escalation, she will live a comfortable life after her separation from politics courtesy of the millions in fees collected from speeches and the money dumped into the Clinton Foundation (which donors may now demand be refunded as the Clintons no longer have any political favors to repay).
However, one other person who has been far more severely impacted is Hillary’s close, right-hand aide, Huma Abedin, whose estranged husband many - including John Podesta himself - claim was the catalyst that caused Hillary’s sudden drop in the polls in the week prior to the election, and may have cost Clinton the presidency. Worse, with her boss now out of politics, Huma suddenly finds herself in a dead-end career, with few accomplishments outside of the Clinton campaign to point to, a looming divorce and a potential criminal probe.
Now, according to the Daily Mail, it may have all finally hit Huma, who appears to have suffered an emotional breakdown, weeping “openly as she returns to campaign headquarters where she and her aides ran doomed bid to elect Hillary Clinton.”
The UK paper adds that Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin " wept in the street as she approached the failed campaign’s headquarters in Brooklyn."
“Abedin ventured out of her Manhattan apartment and went to the office three days after President-elect Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Clinton. She approached the tall building with stunning views which had until Tuesday been filled with staff an volunteers carrying a bag and a purse. The pain and emotion of the situation were clearly visible on the face of the long-time loyalist, despite the dark large-frame sunglasses that covered her eyes.”
The Mail adds that “at one point Abedin’s lip quivered and she wiped her eyes as she took the emotional journey back to work.”
What made the loss especially painful for Huma is that she herself may have played a role in it: two weeks ago it was revealed that the reason the FBI had reopened its Clinton email probe, which caused a sharp drop in her approval rating, was because of the FBI’s parallel investigation into the laptop of "her pervert estranged husband Anthony Weiner".
It was Comey ’ who we think may have cost us the election ,’ campaign chair John Podesta said on a post-election campaign conference call, The Hill reported. The implication: it was indirectly Anthony Weiner’s fault, and thus Huma is left with a big part of the unspoken blame.
After the FBI bombshell, Abedin was suddenly off Clinton’s campaign plane for several days, missing high-profile campaign events in swing states with Jennifer Lopez, March Anthony, Beyonce, and Jay Z. But she re-emerged to hold a Washington D.C. fundraiser with Vogue editor Anna Wintour on the Friday before the election where she was photographed smiling.
As the Mail notes, “it isn’t known what’s in store for the longtime Clinton aide now that her boss isn’t going to the White House.”
While at the State Department Abedin also was able to get special dispensation to also work part-time for the Clinton-linked firm Teneo as well as the foundation following the birth of her son Jordan, now four.
Campaign employment typically ends immediately after a defeat, as campaign work to pay off vendors and close up shop.
Adding to family difficulties, Weiner has been made virtually unemployable by his sexting scandal. He is currently in a rehab facility that treats people with sexual addictions. He left a job at a PR firm after a revolt from fellow partners at the firm, although he has provided televised commentary on politics in New York.
Then there is the overhang of a possible follow-up probe into Hillary which means that Abedin’s future has more than just career uncertainty hanging over it. Trump has warned that he could appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s email scandal. Separately, an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation has been under way for some time, looking at allegations of influence peddling. Abedin’s role in the foundation is likely to form a part of that probe, especially when she was paid by it and the State Department.
Damaging Wikileaks emails showed her receiving messages from Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s right-hand man who effectively ran the foundation until around 2011 asking for State Department access for what he referred to as ‘friends of ours’ or ‘good friend’ - and who were also donors to the Foundation.
The discussion over the possibility of a pardon for Clinton herself is also uncomfortable as it would be likely to lead to calls for those who reported to her to be investigated more fully.
On the other hand, a pardon for 40-year-old Abedin would effectively end any possibility of her taking part in public life in the future.
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While we commiserate with Huma who was merely doing the bidding of Hillary and hoping to get ahead, and is hardly responsible for her husband’s cheating, the biggest irony in all of it, is that just as Trump’s presidential chances were vastly underestimated by everyone, so were his warnings going as far back as 2013 that Anthony Weiner would ultimately cause harm and “calamity” to those around him.
