Especially striking are the ways in which Abedin’s own marriage follows the patterns of her boss’s, raising many of the same questions. Was it love or ambition that made her stay with a self-destructive politician who betrayed her again and again? Is her torment a testament to her character, or evidence that something is lacking in her judgment?
…The timing of the film’s release is hardly ideal, coming at a moment when Clinton appears poised to become the first woman to win a major party’s presidential nomination. Abedin comes off as the oldest stereotype in politics: the suffering, ornamental spouse…
Off-screen, however, Abedin has become a key figure in many of the controversies that have swirled around Clinton.
She has been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with its probe into Clinton’s use of a private email account. Questions have also been raised about the fact that, during the last six months of Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, Abedin was drawing paychecks simultaneously from the government, a private consulting firm with close ties to the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation and the secretary’s personal office…
She was a George Washington University student at the time, the Michigan-born daughter of a Pakistani mother and Indian father, both academics. A practicing Muslim, she had spent much of her childhood in Saudi Arabia…
Only touched upon are the implications of what she is doing on his behalf. Abedin worked the contacts she had made through the Clintons and leveraged the expectations of the role she would have in a future Clinton administration.
Some who are close to the Clintons were appalled.
“People like Huma, but they saw her trading on the Hillary card and resented it, but that didn’t mean they didn’t show up” for Weiner, one longtime Clinton friend and adviser had told the Washington Post at the time. “The chatter was, if you wanted to stay in Hillary’s good graces, you answer the call from Huma.”
