Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin announced on Monday that she had separated from her husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, after the publication of newly revealed, explicit Twitter messages sent by Weiner to a woman he met online.

“After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband,” Abedin said in a statement. “Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life. During this difficult time, I ask for respect for our privacy.”



Abedin, 40, and Weiner, 51, were married in 2010 in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton; the couple have a four-year-old boy.

The latest messages appear to follow a long-running pattern of conduct by Weiner online that has made a public spectacle of his marriage and recalled the sex scandals attached to the Clintons’ marriage.

Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after similar explicit messages came to light. His 2013 New York City mayoral bid foundered on a similar scandal.

The Post on Monday published texts and images said to have been sent and received by Weiner about a year ago, in July 2015. The images include one that appears to have been sent by Weiner in which his young son, asleep, is visible in the background.

Abedin went to work for Clinton as a 19-year-old White House intern and has been her indispensable aide for about a decade, working for Clinton through her 2008 presidential bid and during her tenure as secretary of state. Emails between Abedin and Clinton revealed by an investigation of Clinton’s email practices show Abedin coordinating travel for Clinton, managing access to her, and helping her with matters as small as fax machine operation.

“I have one daughter,” Hillary Clinton told attendees at Abedin’s wedding. “But if I had a second daughter, it would be Huma.”

Clinton’s political enemies moved quickly to capitalize on the break-up. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, released a statement warning that Weiner’s online behavior may have “greatly compromised” national security.

“Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him,” Trump said in the statement.

“I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information,” the statement continued. “Who knows what he learned and who he told? It’s just another example of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this.”

The Republican nominee had referenced Abedin’s relationship with Weiner on the campaign trail on many occasions in the past year. He first railed against Weiner as a “sleazebag” and a “perv” in August 2015 at an event in Massachusetts. Trump opined then that Abedin was sharing classified information with her husband.

During Weiner’s time in Congress, Trump twice donated to the New York Democrat and giving a total of $4,300 to Weiner’s campaigns.

As Weiner’s mayoral bid collapsed in 2013, Abedin, already anticipating Clinton’s presidential run, appeared alongside him and expressed support for him. She did not appear at a concession speech he gave at the end of the campaign.

The disintegrating mayoral bid, and the couple’s efforts to prevent the same from happening to their marriage, were the subject of an award-winning documentary released this year. That film, Weiner, is scheduled to be broadcast on cable television in October, weeks before the election.

Earlier this month, Weiner said that Abedin had never agreed to be featured in the documentary.

Abedin was widely reported to have sought Clinton’s counsel when her husband’s sexting was revealed in the summer of 2011. It’s not known what Clinton advised her. Unnamed intimates of the Clintons told the New York Times that year that the Clintons were unhappy with the situation and with Weiner.

Clinton followed the Weiner scandal closely via updates from other aides, internal emails show.

Weiner’s Twitter account has been deleted.



Additional reporting by Ben Jacobs in Washington