The teenage girl sent sexual images by New York politician Anthony Weiner targeted the former congressman to “influence” the 2016 Presidential election, it has been claimed.

Mr Weiner’s lawyers have told a court that the child, 15 at the time, was trying “to generate material for a book the Government has disclosed she is now shopping to publishers”.

She also wanted “to somehow influence the US presidential election, in addition to securing personal profit,” they added in a filing ahead of the 53-year-old’s sentencing in the sexting case, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The case became mixed up in the investigation into the emails of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when Mr Weiner’s laptop was seized.

Investigators found emails belonging to Huma Abedin, his now-estranged wife and a top Clinton aide, on the device, and it prompted the opening of a new inquiry by then-FBI director James Comey.

Ms Clinton partly credits Mr Comey with having cost her the election.

Mr Weiner is hoping to avoid jail time, it is reported.

His lawyers say he is ill and had previously demonstrated “an addict’s self-serving delusion that the communications were all just internet fantasy”.