Long-time Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin is looking to capitalize on her boss’ stunning defeat to Donald Trump in the 2016 election and her estranged husband’s numerous cheating scandals with a $2 million book deal.
Abedin, the 40-year-old wife of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, is reportedly looking to land a multi-million dollar deal for a tell-all book chronicling her tumultuous life, which exploded last year when an investigation into Weiner’s alleged sexting with a 15-year-old girl exposed possible wrongdoing by her boss days before the election, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
FBI Director James Comey announced shortly before the election that emails recovered from Weiner’s laptop also contained Abedin’s emails, which were possibly relevant to an investigation into Clinton’s boneheaded use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
The Clintons contend the announcement tanked her chances, even though Comey cleared Hillary days before the election.
The Hollywood Reporter reports Abedin has spent the last several weeks meeting with agents and publishers for “a book that is envisioned as a reflection on how her personal and professional lives collided during the campaign.”
Abedin, who has been by Clinton’s side since landing an internship with the former first lady in 1996, married Weiner in a 2010 ceremony officiated by former President Bill Clinton. She announced the couple’s separation last August after Weiner was busted in his third sexting scandal. The first scandal cost him his job in the House of Representatives, the second ended his bid for New York City mayor.
Abedin appeared in a 2016 documentary chronicling fallout from Weiner’s first sexting scandal, but has otherwise largely avoided talking to the media about her failed marriage.
“She’s more interesting than her husband. We know who he is. She’s the ongoing mystery,” Julian Zelizer, presidential historian at Princeton University, told the Hollywood Reporter. “But she’ll have to put herself out there. That’s what the publisher will be looking for.”
Ester Newberg, a literary agent with ICM Partners, said she has not been approached by Abedin to discuss a deal, and she wouldn’t be interested if she was.
“No one would have approached me with this book because they know I’m not a Hillary fan. I’m an Obama fan,” Newberg said. “This will be an interesting sale to see who wants to know what (Weiner) said to her each time he was caught.
“If she reveals a lot, it turns your stomach,” she said. “If she doesn’t, she puts the publisher in a bad place.”
A source close to Abedin told the New York Post last month that she’s working to fix her relationship with Weiner, and the announcement of their separation last fall was “more for optics for the campaign and (under) pressure from Hillary’s camp.”
“Huma has been working hard on her relationship with Anthony,” the source said. “He has been spending 80 to 90 percent of his time at the (Irving Place apartment) they share … If there is a disagreement, he goes to his mother’s apartment in Brooklyn.
“Both (his and her) families are hoping they will reconcile.”
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