Sexting Scandal: Indian-origin Clinton aide Huma Abedin files for separation with husband

New York: Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin, whose father is from India and mother from Pakistan, has filed for separation from her husband Anthony Weiner in the wake of a new report that the former New York congressman had been involved in yet another sexting scandal.

Abedin’s decision to separate comes in the immediate aftermath of the ‘The New York Post’ report that Weiner had sent explicit photos with his toddler son in the background to a woman.

“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.

In a report published yesterday, The Post said: “While Abedin travels the country campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Clinton, the ex-congressman was exchanging lewd and sexually explicit texts and photographs with an unidentified woman last year.”

Weiner, a seven-term democrat, had resigned in 2011 after it was disclosed he had been sending lewd messages to random women online.

According to the report, the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the electronic chats between her and Weiner began in late January 2015 and continued through earlier this month.

Asked for comment, Weiner said in the report that he and the woman “have been friends for some time.”

“She has asked me not to comment except to say that our conversations were private, often included pictures of her nieces and nephews and my son and were always appropriate” he said.

Abedin, 40 and currently vice chairwoman of the Clinton Campaign, married Weiner in 2010. In December 2011, she gave birth to a boy Jordan Zain Weiner.

“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 said.

Considered as one of the closet personal aide to Clinton, Abedin has been in news of late in the aftermath of Clinton’s email-scandal and release of emails of the former secretary of state.

Abedin has worked for Clinton for the last two decades. Her late father, Syed Zainul Abedin, was a graduate of Aligarh Muslim University and a university lecturer, and her mother – a Pakistani native – was a sociology professor.

PTI