How Anthony Weiner’s wiener scandal may shaft Hillary Clinton’s hope of becoming the next US President after FBI probe
IT IS the sex scandal that has shocked Americans twice before – and now threatens to destroy Hillary Clinton’s hopes of becoming President.
It concerns a lustful politician sending sordid messages and explicit photos to girls he met online while his ambitious wife was pregnant.
He also accidentally tweeted a picture of his crotch for all the world to see, and had to admit sexting several women during his entire relationship with his wife.
With days to go before next Tuesday’s election, the tawdry scandal surrounding shamed former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner has again reared its head — with potentially damaging links to Hillary.
The 52-year-old’s antics have now put his ex-wife Huma Abedin — one of Hillary’s top aides — at the centre of a new investigation.
Weiner is accused of sending sick “rape fantasies” to a 15-year-old girl — in a case that has unearthed emails between his computer and Hillary’s that the FBI say “appear pertinent” to an earlier investigation into the presidential hopeful.
In recent weeks Republican candidate Donald Trump has been dogged with allegations of sexual misconduct, but now he is insisting “Emailgate” is worse than Watergate.
Yesterday, Hillary’s 12-point lead in the polls had vanished. She and Trump are now neck and neck.
The Weiner sex scandal began on May 27, 2011, when he accidentally tweeted a picture of his bulging crotch to his public profile instead of in a direct message to Seattle college student Gennette Cordova, 21.
Wife Huma, now 40, was pregnant with their only child, son Jordan.
Weiner deleted it and claimed to have been hacked. Then a week later a snap emerged that he had sent to a second unnamed woman — said to be part of a haul of 200 sexually explicit images and messages.
He finally admitted to having sexual exchanges over social media with SIX women over three years.
He also admitted contact with a 17-year-old girl in Delaware, but insisted there was nothing improper.
He said: “This was me doing a dumb thing, and doing it repeatedly and lying about it.”
Then one of his sexting buddies, Lisa Weiss, a blackjack dealer from Nevada, shared his lewd messages, which included: “Think of my rock hard c***. Practise saying, ‘God, Anthony I’m c***ing again’.”
Traci Nobles, a cheerleading coach from Athens, Georgia, revealed she had received multiple pictures of his penis and texts in which he referred to his genitals in the third person.
Eventually, five of the six women came forward, including Cordova and Megan Broussard, a 26-year-old single mum from Texas.
One email to Broussard showed an erect penis. She said: “I don’t think he’s a bad guy, I think he’s just got issues like everybody else.”
President Obama put the final nail in the coffin of Weiner’s political career in June, saying: “If it was me, I would resign.”
After Weiner requested a leave of absence, porn star Ginger Lee accused him of deceit.
She said: “I did not send photos to him or receive photos from him.
“Any time he would take conversations in a sexual direction, I would not reciprocate. When the scandal broke I did not know what to do. So I emailed Anthony Weiner. He asked me to lie about our communication.”
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Ginger’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said the pair exchanged about 100 emails, including ones where he wrote: “I have wardrobe demands too. I need to highlight my package” and “Alright, my package and I are not going to beg”.
Weiner eventually quit Congress and frontline politics, but two years later he stood for the role of New York City major.
Huma publicly lent her support after they had marriage counselling.
Referring to Hillary’s loyalty to her husband Bill during his affairs, the New York Post’s Adam Weiss wrote: “Huma comes from the Clinton school of forgiveness — power is more important than dignity.”
But it didn’t take long for more sleaze to gush forth.
Sydney Leathers, from Indiana, revealed she had been having phone sex with Weiner five times a day between July and November 2012.
Support for “Carlos Danger”, as he called himself when chatting to Sydney, evaporated and he got only 4.9 per cent of the mayoral vote.
Long-suffering Huma stood by him until this spring, when a newspaper ran a shocking picture he had sent to yet another sexting partner.
It showed his bulging crotch, in briefs, while he was lying next to their sleeping four-year-old son. It was one of many exchanges with a fortysomething Trump supporter. He told her: “I am always, uh, raging after the gym” and bragged of his large manhood, saying: “I’d put someone’s eye out with this thing.”
His messages were littered with crude emojis of winking, tongue-out faces, penises and devils.
It was the final blow for Huma, who announced her separation from Weiner in August.
Donald Trump said: “Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner very well and she will be far better off without him.”
The relationship between Weiner and Hillary’s closest aide may be over, but it is still a looming threat to the presidential candidate.
Weiner is now accused of sexting a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina with rape fantasies. When the FBI trawled through his Sent box, investigating this allegation, they found messages which “appear pertinent” to the earlier investigation into Hillary’s emails, according to FBI director James Comey.
Hillary, who was found to have used a private server in her home to send classified information, thought the investigation was behind her in July after no charges were brought.
But sources say “tens of thousands” of the 650,000 emails on Weiner’s computer are from Huma communicating with Hillary’s private email server. Huma swore on oath months ago that she had surrendered to the FBI all electronic devices on which important emails had been stored — and could face jail if it can be proved she lied.
The whole email affair fuels the Trump message that Clinton is “crooked”, particularly as Huma is the vice chair of her campaign and has been with her for 20 years.
They are so close that at Huma’s wedding to Weiner in 2010, at which Bill Clinton officiated, Hillary said: “I have one daughter but if I had a second daughter it would be Huma.”
Earlier this year Huma told Vanity Fair mag that she and Hillary have “spent more time together than either has with her husband”.
One source revealed that when Huma was an intern, if Hillary barked “Gum”, Huma would pass some. And on learning that Hillary had carried her own bag upstairs because an aide was absent, Huma nearly burst into tears.
It is no surprise the two women are allies. Hillary’s experience of her husband’s infidelity made her a shoulder to cry on for Huma during “Weinergate” in 2011 and 2013.
Despite travelling everywhere with Hillary throughout the campaign, Huma has been holed up in her New York apartment since Friday.
Last week she could have been sure of a key role in a President Hillary Clinton administration, but now her political career hangs in the balance as much as her boss’s.
If, that is, the damage hasn’t already been done.