Longtime Hillary Clinton aide and estranged wife of former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.) Huma Abedin alleged in a new book that she was sexually assaulted by an unnamed U.S. senator in the mid-2000s.
What are the details?
In her forthcoming memoir, “Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds,” set for release next week, Abedin recounts certain details about the incident but gives away few clues about the senator’s party or other aspects of his identity, the Guardian reported.
The incident allegedly took place sometime between 2001 and 2009, when Abedin worked for then-U.S. Senator from New York Hillary Clinton, before Clinton became the secretary of state and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
Abedin writes that she was at a Washington, D.C., dinner attended by “a few senators and their aides” — though not Clinton — when she “ended up walking out with one of the senators, and soon we stopped in front of his building and he invited me in for coffee. Once inside, he told me to make myself comfortable on the couch.”
Here’s more from the Guardian:
She says the senator took off his blazer, rolled up his sleeves and made coffee while they continued to talk.
“Then, in an instant, it all changed. He plopped down to my right, put his left arm around my shoulder, and kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth, pressing me back on the sofa.
“I was so utterly shocked, I pushed him away. All I wanted was for the last 10 seconds to be erased.”
Abedin writes that the senator seemed surprised but apologized and said he had “misread” her “all this time”. As she considered how to leave “without this ending badly”, she writes, the senator asked if she wanted to stay.
“Then I said something only the twentysomething version of me would have come up with – ‘I am so sorry’ – and walked out, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible.”
The former Clinton aide recalled that she kept away from the senator for a number of days before eventually running into him on Capitol Hill, where the two had an awkward exchange resulting in an agreement to remain friends.
What else?
In her memoir, Abedin writes that she soon “buried the incident” and succeeded in erasing it from her memory “entirely” until 2018, when the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh brought the assault back to mind.
She reportedly alleges that her remembrance of the experience was triggered after reading about Christine Blasey Ford “being accused of ‘conveniently’ remembering” Kavanaugh’s alleged assault against her.