Michael M. Grynbaum, Michael Barbara, Amy Chozick
The New York Times
5/23/2013
When Chelsea Clinton wanted to make a low-key visit to the hurricane-stricken Rockaways last fall, she arranged to take a trip with her close friend Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
So some members of the Clinton camp were surprised and unsettled to learn that Ms. Abedin also brought along her husband, Anthony D. Weiner, the former congressman who had rarely been seen in public since resigning his seat the previous year.
The next day, Mr. Weiner reactivated his Twitter account to post a video about the Rockaways. Photographs soon surfaced in New York news outlets of the former congressman in the ravaged Queens neighborhood, the former first daughter at his side.
As Mr. Weiner, a Democrat, seeks an improbable return to politics, announcing this week that he is running for mayor of New York City, some have wondered how a politician who exchanged sexually explicit messages with strangers could persuade his wife to undergo another excruciating period in the spotlight.
But the reality, it turns out, is just the opposite: Those close to the couple say that Ms. Abedin, a seasoned operative well versed in the politics of redemption, has been a main architect of her husband’s rehabilitative journey, shaping his calculated comeback and drawing on her close ties with one of the country’s most powerful families to lay the groundwork for his return.
A surrogate daughter to Bill and Hillary Clinton who has seen firsthand the cleansing power of campaigns, Ms. Abedin has leapt into her husband’s effort, conferring on strategy and helping to hire staff members from her long history with the Clintons: Ms. Abedin worked with Mr. Weiner’s new 30-year-old campaign manager, Danny Kedem, during Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential run…
The article continues at The New York Times.
Related: Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook
Also, Weiner’s Wife Didn’t Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept.
The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department…
…Ms. Abedin declined a request for an interview, but the picture that emerges from interviews and records suggests a situation where the lines were blurred between Ms. Abedin’s work in the high echelons of one of the government’s most sensitive executive departments and her role as a Clinton family insider…
Update: Did Huma Abedin ‘quietly’ step down as Deputy Chief of Staff in same month Bachmann letter sent to IG?, by Walid Shoebat
Update 2: Weiner’s Wife Is the One to Watch
…But what is just as interesting as the circus freak atmosphere of Weiner’s campaign is another angle of it that was explored this morning by the New York Times. Rather than just being the suffering yet faithful spouse in this drama, the Times claims Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin is the driving force behind his attempted comeback. Indeed the paper claims the main reason why some Democratic consultants have even considered joining his campaign is because they feel doing so will give them access to Abedin and a leg up toward a job with the next presidential campaign of her personal patron and surrogate mother, Hillary Clinton. That means that rather than merely being a prop in her husband’s soap opera whose presence is intended to deflect outrage about his personality defects, it is Abedin who is actually the more interesting subject for scrutiny…
