On Saturday, Wikileaks released the first email showing Hillary Clinton’s campaign mentioning former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s sex scandals from chairman John Podesta’s purported email accounts.
In December 2015, Deputy Communications Director Kristina Schake flagged a New York Times article about the documentary film Weiner for Sara Latham, Podesta’s Chief of Staff. Latham then forwarded the email to Podesta — with no cc of top Clinton advisers Cheryl Mills or Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife.
The email’s only hint of commentary comes in the form of Schake’s choice of excerpt: “The saga of Anthony D. Weiner has been out of the headlines for a while, but it will be on the silver screen in January, just in time for the Iowa caucuses,” reads a quote she pasted under the link.
Weiner’s name comes up in several other previous email chains, but virtually all of them are roundups of political news coverage — not a direct discussion among top Clinton campaign employees.
Schake’s email evokes the tight-lipped discussions that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s inner circles had in 2014 about reports alleging Bill had taken a new mistress.
Of those email threads, Breitbart’s Charlie Spiering wrote:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign closely monitored reports of Bill Clinton’s alleged mistresses, including rumors surrounding one woman nicknamed “The Energizer” who routinely visited his home.
Hillary Clinton’s aide Cheryl Mills sent an email inquiring about a Daily Mail report speculating about the identity of Energizer.
“Who is the ‘Energiser’ (sic) who has been Clinton’s secret lover?” she asked, sending a link to the story.
“Well they sure managed to get every name into one story,” replied Podesta wryly, after reading the story in the email chain that included Tina Flournoy, Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. “I guess you got to give them credit for that.”
Flournoy then suggested that the trio get together for a phone call to discuss the issue offline.
Weiner’s penchant for sexting young women has twice derailed his own political career and now threatens to ruin Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. In a bizarre 2011 saga, Andrew Breitbart, the late founder of this site, forced establishment media to acknowledge that then-Congressman Weiner accidentally tweeted a picture of his clothed erection to a college student in Seattle. Weiner soon resigned from the House of Representatives. In 2013, he mounted a campaign for mayor of New York City but lost support when a woman named Sydney Leathers revealed he was still sexting strangers.
In 2016, Weiner’s vice landed him in legal hot water, as one online paramour leaked a racy photo that he took with his four-year-old son in the frame; New York’s child welfare services opened an investigation. After this picture surfaced, Abedin separated from her husband.
Then, a teenage girl alleged that Weiner had sent her pornography and encouraged her to undress and masturbate during video chats.
The FBI apparently opened an investigation into whether Weiner broke child pornography laws. And, while examining a device that he shared with Abedin, agents reportedly found new emails pertinent to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified materials while Secretary of State. FBI Director James Comey announced to Congress Friday that the bureau reopened the inquiry into Clinton’s private, unsecured email server.
Because of Weiner’s alleged underage sex scandal, Clinton will likely make history as a presidential candidate under federal investigation on the day that voters cast their ballots.