Huma Abedin, the close aide to Hillary Clinton and estranged wife of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, has a memoir coming out this fall.
Abedin will tell”her inspiring story, coming of age as an American Muslim, the daughter of Indian and literary scholars who divide his time between Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the UK,” according to the publisher.
“`Both/And’ grapples with family, heritage, identity, religion, marriage, and motherhood,” Scribner declared. “It stocks Huma Abedin’s personal accounts as a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton during Mrs. Clinton’s years as First Lady, U.S. Senator, a presidential candidate, Secretary of State, and Democratic Presidential Nominee, and a candid and moving reckoning of Ms. Abedin’s marriage to former Congressman Anthony Weiner.”
Abedin, for years an object of speculation,” said in a statement that her memoir enables her to define herself.
“For the majority of my life, I was viewed through the lens of others, a refraction of somebody else’s pronoun. ‘They’ as in the parents who raised me’she’ as in the girl I worked ; and’he’ as from the man I married,” Abedin said.
“Writing this book gave me the chance to reflect in my own life — by the nurturing family I had been blessed to be born into, to functioning for one of the strongest leaders of the time. This trip has led me through exhilarating landmarks and catastrophic setbacks. I’ve walked with good pride and in shame. It’s a life I’m — more than anything else — enormously grateful for and a narrative I look forward to discussing.”
Abedin, 45, has known Clinton because she had been a student at George Washington University, when she worked as an intern in 1996 for its then-first lady. She had been an aide to Clinton during Clinton’s successful run for the U.S. Senate in 2000; deputy chief of staff during Clinton’s years as secretary of state in the first period of the Obama administration, 2009-2013; and a top advisor during the 2016 election, even when Clinton lost in a dramatic upset to Republican Donald Trump.
“Over the years, we’ve shared stories about our lives, we’ve shared more foods than I can count, we’ve observed together, we’ve mourned together,” Abedin said of Clinton in an August 2016 characteristic concerning the aide at Vogue, that called her”in many ways the motor in the center of Clinton’s well-run machine, critical and yet largely out of sight.”
Clinton, mum of Chelsea Clinton, has spoken of Abedin as a second daughter. And former President Bill Clinton officiated in her 2010 wedding to Weiner, then a New York congressman seen as an emerging star in the Democratic Party. However, Weiner’s career collapsed the following year after he confessed texting lewd photographs of himself to several ladies. In 2013, he attempted a comeback by running for mayor of New York City, but his campaign was soon upended as it was disclosed he lasted sexting even after resigning from Congress, a scandal that unfolded on camera during the award-winning documentary”Weiner.”
Weiner pleaded guilty in 2017 to charges of sending sexual substances to a minor and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Abedin had declared their separation in 2016 and, according to her publisher, she and Weiner are finalizing their divorce. (They consented in 2018 to settle their divorce out of court).
Abedin’s union, and her connection with the Clintons, led to her being caught up in the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private computer host for her mails while she was secretary of state an issue through much of this 2016 campaign.
Then-FBI Director James Comey announced in July 2016 he wouldn’t suggest any criminal charges against Clinton even because he said she had been”extremely careless.” But in late October, less than two weeks before Election Day, he informed Congress that the bureau was reopening the case after emails between Clinton and Abedin were found on Weiner’s computer during the probe into the former congressman’s sexting. The FBI reported a week after that nothing over the notebook changed the recommendation against fees, but Clinton has predicted Comey’s intervention — and the headlines that it created –“the deciding factor” in her narrow defeat to Trump.
In Clinton’s 2017 memoir”What Happens,” she remembered being on the campaign plane when she and Abedin discovered the FBI probe was reopened.
“When we heard this Huma looked stricken,” Clinton wrote. “Anthony had already caused so much heartache. ‘This man is going to be the death of me,’ (Huma) said, bursting into tears.” Clinton added that it had been agonizing to see Abedin”in such distress.”
“Some people thought I need to fire Huma or’distance .’ “I stuck with her the same way she has always stuck by me.”
