Weinergate

Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner were wed July 10, 2010 in a ceremony officiated by former President Bill Clinton.

Weinergate refers to a series of recurring scandals originating with Democrat Congressman and former New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. Weiner is the spouse of longtime intimate Hillary Clinton advisor and "body woman" Huma Abedin. The first sexting scandal occurred shortly after Weiner's marriage to Abedin; the second, more serious offense, involved a minor and impacted the 2016 Presidential election which Hillary Clinton blamed for her loss to Donald Trump. Weiner and Abedin were married in a 2010 ceremony officiated by former President Bill Clinton amidst rumors of Hillary Clinton's homosexuality and her ambitions to be President Obama's successor.

Child sexting scandal

On September 21, 2016 the Daily Mail published an interview with a 15 year old girl and her father alleging she had an online sexual relationship with Anthony Weiner beginning January 23, 2016. The FBI New York Office (NYO), and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) led by Preet Bharara, issued a subpoena for Weiner's laptop and electronic devices shortly after.

A federal search warrant was obtained for Anthony Weiner’s iPhone, iPad, and laptop computer. The FBI obtained these devices the same day. The search warrant authorized the government to search for evidence relating to the following crimes: transmitting obscene material to a minor, sexual exploitation of children, and activities related to child pornography. The Weiner case agent told the OIG that he began processing Weiner’s devices on September 26, and that he noticed “within hours” that there were “over 300,000 emails on the laptop.” He saw at least one BlackBerry PIN message between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, as well as emails between them. He sae emails associated with “about seven domains,” such as yahoo.com, state.gov, clintonfoundation.org, clintonemail.com, and hillaryclinton.com. The case agent immediately notified his FBI New York Office (NYO) chain of command, and the information was ultimately briefed to NYO Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC).

McCabe and 39 senior FBI executives notified by NY Assistant Director In Charge (ADIC) via secure video teleconference (SVTC) of 347,000 emails relevant to the Clinton email investigation on Weiner's laptop. Comey was not present for the SVTC.

McCabe told the OIG that he recalled talking to Comey about the issue “right around the time [McCabe] found out about it.”

The emails in question appear to be insurance Weiner held to pull strings with Hillary Clinton as leverage should he get into trouble.

McCabe informs Priestap and Strzok.

Strzok to Lisa Page text message:

“Got called up to Andy [McCabe]’s earlier ...hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s atty to [DOJ Southern District of New York] sdny, includes a ton of material from spouse [ Huma Abedin ]. Sending team up [to New York] tomorrow to review... this will neverend...”

Strzok later said a conference call with NYO was scheduled instead.

• 28-29 September. Priestap and NY ADIC discuss the limited scope of the Weiner search warrant (i.e., the need to obtain additional legal process to review any Clinton-related email on the Weiner laptop).

• 29 September. Conference call between NYO and five members (Strzok and Tashina Gauhar included) of the Clinton email team participated. Notes from the conference call indicate the participants discussed the presence of a large volume of emails (350,000) on the Weiner laptop and specific domain names, including clintonemail.com and state.gov. The Clinton email investigation Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) said that NYO also mentioned seeing BlackBerry domain emails on the Weiner laptop.

• OIG found that by this date FBI executives and the FBI Midyear [Clinton email investigation] team had learned virtually every fact that was cited by the FBI in late October as justification for obtaining the search warrant for the Weiner laptop, including that the laptop contained:

• Over 340,000 emails, some of which were from domains associated with Clinton, including state.gov, clintonfoundation.org, clintonemail.com, and hillaryclinton.com; • Numerous emails between Clinton and Abedin; • An unknown number of Blackberry communications on the laptop, including one or more messages between Clinton and Abedin, indicating the possibility that the laptop contained communications from the first three months of Clinton’s tenure; and • Emails dated beginning in 2007 and covering the entire period of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

• Strzok, Gauhar, and one other unnamed person appointed to review Weiner laptop.

• The Washington FBI Clinton email team claimed in interviews with the OIG that they did not learned these facts until the October 26, 2016, conference call with the New York field office and SDNY. They thought the case had been whitewashed and closed, and Hillary would win anyway. Now the New York office and prosecutors were in possession of relevant facts.

2011 offense

The original Weinergate scandal broke shortly after the Abedin/Weiner nupitals. On Friday, May 27, 2011, New York Democrat Representative Anthony Weiner publicly sent a tweet containing a link to a lewd photograph of himself in gray underwear to a Twitter friend, a Seattle resident and college student, 21-year-old Gennette Nicole Cordova. Anthony Weiner denied sending the tweet and blamed it on a hacker. Former President Bill Clinton officiated at their wedding last July.

On June 6, 2011, Weiner admitted that he sent the lewd photo to the woman over Twitter, after claiming for days that he was hacked.

It Was Weiner's Tweet

Anthony Weiner admitted on June 6 that he sent the photo of himself to the Seattle college student, and also revealed more into the unraveling Weinergate story during a 30 minutes press conference. Weiner said, "Last Friday night I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted it to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake."

Anthony Weiner used government resources to communicate with women over the phone, according to one of the six women that Weiner engaged with in inappropriate conversations, Meagan Broussard. Several of the women Anthony communicated with have come forward, claiming to have photographs, chats, and emails with Anthony Weiner.

Other Quotes from Speech

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To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent it.

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Over the past few years I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online.

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I exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years.

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They are all adults, at least to a the best of my knowledge, they were all adults and they were engaging in these conversations consensually.

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Weiner resigns from Congress

Representative Anthony Weiner resigned on Jun 16, 2011, over a weeks-long Internet sex scandal, succumbing to bipartisan calls for him to step down. Weiner denied for more than a week that he sent a photo of himself in boxer briefs to a woman in Seattle on May 28, claiming his Twitter account had been hacked. But on June 6, he tearfully admitted he had lied and that he had inappropriate exchanges with six women, some after he was married.