‘If Hillary Clinton loses this election, it will be because of you and me’ – an exclusive extract from Huma Abedin’s memoir
If there was a single night I truly believed Hillary Clinton would become president, it was 28 July 2016, when she took to the floor in her white Ralph Lauren suit to formally accept the nomination. As a blizzard of confetti and a hundred thousand red, white and blue balloons descended from the cavernous ceiling, the song Stronger Together, written and recorded for that evening, echoed through the hall, competing with the deafening sounds of fifty thousand supporters clapping and cheering for the woman in white on stage. Once HRC accepted the nomination, she began tossing giant blue balloons emblazoned with white stars out to the audience; to Tim Kaine, her running mate; to Chelsea, who had spoken so eloquently to introduce her mother; to her husband, who had given his own moving tribute to her on the second night of the convention and now looked exuberant as he waded through the waist-high drift of balloons that rained down.
Afterwards, our delegation of about 20 Clinton/Kaine family members, campaign staff and officials made its way through the balloons to the small backstage hold area, and Tim Kaine surprised me by leading the rest of our group in an impromptu singing of Happy Birthday. It was my 41st birthday. This new decade was turning out to be pretty extraordinary. Or so it seemed.
A month later, after a long day in the midst of a week of fundraising events on Long Island, I joined Anthony and our son Jordan in a home that had been lent to us so that I could stay close to the Clintons. The house was a pristine construction of glass and wood, with a tennis court and rectangular granite pool in the back. It was this scene of unblemished perfection that would soon be the setting for the collapse of my entire house of cards.
When I walked through the front door that evening, Anthony was in the middle of his end-of-day routines with Jordan, and I joined my nightly conference calls. He played games with Jordan while bathing him, then dressed him in pyjamas and handed him to me so I could read him a bedtime story. Anthony had been checking his phone regularly, but no more than I.
‘I’d seen what she had gone through’: Abedin with Hillary Clinton on her campaign plane in 2016. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP
Jordan fell asleep beside me, and I continued to sit with him, my dress crumpled around me, the lamp still on, his picture book open in my lap, my iPhone in my hand as I began responding to the messages that had come in over the past 30 minutes.
“Can you talk?”
Anthony had quietly walked into the room. From the tone, I knew it was bad.
“The New York Post called.” Really bad.
It was late. There was simply too much going on in my world for Anthony’s problems to surface at this moment. The Democratic National Committee server being hacked; Trump publicly calling on Russia to find Hillary’s emails; warnings about Russian election interference; death threats from Islamic State. I was also planning the final two months of the campaign. On the home front, Jordan’s first day of school was the following week and I was worried I wouldn’t even be in town for it. I didn’t have the bandwidth to contend with any more problems.
Distracted and overwhelmed, I half-heartedly asked, “What is this about?”
I wondered why Anthony would do this now, just when we both had so much at stake in our lives
He opened with an apology, the admission that he didn’t entirely know what was in the story. He simply said the Post had a picture of him and that Jordan might be in it. I envisioned a photo of Anthony and Jordan out somewhere. On the ferry. On the subway. On a park bench. I inferred that he had sent some such picture to another woman. I had given up on expecting him to respect the vows of our marriage, but our child’s image being shared felt more violent than any humiliation I had faced in the past.
The stakes were already so high, almost unbearably so, and I needed help navigating how to handle the story. Around midnight, I emailed Clinton’s adviser Philippe Reines all I knew, which was essentially nothing. “Philippe, I think I have a problem,” I typed before falling into a night of fitful sleep. I knew only one thing: it wouldn’t be as bad as Anthony said. It would be worse. And it was.
A response from Philippe appeared in my inbox in the early hours: “You need to look at this picture yourself.” And so I clicked on the link Philippe sent. I wish I could take back the image that appeared but I can never erase it. There was Jordan, sleeping peacefully next to an indecent Anthony, an image shared with a stranger, or a “friend” in Anthony’s view, and now for the entire world to see. This crossed into another level of degradation, a violation of the innocence of our child. There were no more “What were you thinking?” questions left in me. It was over.
‘The stakes were almost unbearably high.’ Photograph: Chris Buck/The Guardian. Styling: Bailey Moon. Hair: Antonio Velotta. Makeup: Tegan Rice for Charlotte Tilbury Beauty. Clothes: Michael Kors. Heels: Larroudé. Earrings: Briony Raymond
If there was anything unforgivable in a marriage, a partnership in raising a child, this was it. It was not rage that motivated me that morning, because the word rage would not do justice to what I was feeling. I think God had put me in this perfect glass and wood-framed house for a reason, because I would have destroyed everything around me if I had been in my own home. I simmered until I thought I would explode. After checking to make sure Jordan was still asleep and closing the door to his room, I marched out to the living room, where Anthony was lying on the sofa, still fully dressed from the previous night, his eyes bloodshot, phone in his hand, no doubt having seen the article as soon as it posted. I informed him I was putting out a statement announcing our separation, to which he responded quietly: “OK.” I then told him that he needed to find another place to live when we returned to Manhattan. He would not be welcome to sleep in the apartment or spend any nights alone with our son ever again. He nodded, looking down while I screamed at him. The yelling didn’t make anyone feel better, but I did it anyway.
I went outside and got on the phone with Philippe a little after 7am, and asked him to help me with a statement. Then I steeled myself, took a few deep breaths, and dialled Hillary Clinton. She did not need this. Our campaign did not need this. She counted on me, had faith in me, and I was bringing more scandal, more shame to what should have been a laser-focused effort to close out the campaign. She said that she was glad I was finally moving on with my life. I then dialled Bari Luri, now Chelsea’s chief of staff, and emailed Bill Clinton’s team, too, apologising to them all. I knew they would face questions about this on the campaign trail.
Never, for one second, did I think Anthony would do anything to harm or expose our child. Ever. Until now
I thought the image might kill my mother, so I sent her an email, told her I was leaving Anthony and assured her I was fine and that Jordan would be OK. I was glad she was close by, visiting family in New Jersey, because I knew she would come to help me; but I couldn’t have her hear my voice in that moment because then she would know just how bad it was. Everyone has a limit and I had finally reached mine, ages after everyone else had gotten there. The next day, my mom, my sister, my nephews would all descend on us.
I received all sorts of messages that began with “I don’t know what to say”, because “I’m sorry” didn’t seem quite enough this time. Most people congratulated me for finally freeing myself from Anthony.
Twenty-four hours later, my family were on their way to join us, and the fundraisers were in full swing. But I had something else on my plate. New York state Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) was making their first visit to interview Anthony and me, to ensure that Jordan was “safe”. Children’s Services investigations can be triggered by calls to the agency from members of the public concerned about the wellbeing of a child. Enough people had called in to report us that Children’s Services said they had no choice but to open a case. It was a tense and uncomfortable visit. A young woman and two or three men in suits filled the chairs at the dining table and asked questions. Anthony couldn’t remember enough details to answer. When was the photo taken? Who was it sent to? Were there others? What was happening in the image? Was the child awake? I felt like I was in a bad movie where the acting was subpar and the plot made no sense.
After a few minutes, they shifted their attention to me. Did I have any prior knowledge of Anthony taking suggestive pictures in which Jordan was present? I tried not to let the anger within me distort my voice when I said of course I did not. Never, for one second, did I think Anthony would do anything to harm or expose our child. Ever. Until now. The barrage of questions continued, and in the brief silences during their note-taking, my mind could escape back to the old world I had lived in, the world of reason. I wondered why Anthony would do this now, just when we both had so much at stake in our lives. I was on the campaign of a lifetime which, if successful, would be historic. His life was finally back on track. He was in talks to anchor a television news show, write a book, launch a podcast. None of these opportunities could possibly survive the scandal. And they didn’t.
Weiner resigning from Congress. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images
When the investigators said they needed to interview Jordan, I became protective of him and tried to resist. The young woman, who had identified herself as the primary investigator, assured me that she would only ask him a few general questions about how he was doing, and there would be nothing that would make him uncomfortable.
It took a few excruciating minutes. I brought her upstairs and introduced her to Jordan as Mommy’s friend who wanted to say hello. Jordan was eager to tell her how much he loved to play chess, and liked watching Paw Patrol. Then she asked him what form of punishment his parents gave him if he misbehaved. My heart stopped. I was shocked at the implication in her question. “No cookies!” Jordan chirped back.
When the investigator told me she could see that our family was closely bonded, it felt like things would be OK. Then she went on to ask me if it was possible my assessment of Anthony’s parenting lacked the accuracy it would have had if I was present in the home on a regular basis, and what I heard, between the lines, made me want to ask, “You mean if I worked less?” I had been the primary breadwinner for most of my marriage, so not working was not an option. I expressed as much to her.
She nodded that she understood and kept writing her notes.
O
n the night of 24 October I returned home to find the Children’s Services investigator waiting for me. Had I considered what life would be like if Anthony went to prison, she asked. By then, it had been alleged that Anthony had sexted with a teenage girl. Each time I thought he had reached a new nadir, he shocked me by going even lower. But I must have looked blank because she then offered, as kindly as she could, “You seem perplexed.” Perplexed didn’t begin to describe it.
“I just need to get through the next 15 days,” I responded. “Just 15 days. Then I can think about things like prison.”
It may have sounded flip, but I really had no answers to this question – or to so many others. I just didn’t.
On 28 October, on a flight to Cedar Rapids, the reporters on board our campaign plane heard about a letter FBI director Jim Comey was sending to Congress announcing that the FBI was reopening the email investigation. When we landed, we discovered that the investigation seemed to have something to do with some emails found on Anthony’s laptop.
The instant I heard the word “Anthony”, my heart stopped. No, no, no. I had handled this, I had taken control of this. I had sent him away. It had cost us a fortune, I had cobbled together a life of relative normalcy for my son, I came to the office every day. This couldn’t be happening now. But there was no time to linger on any of that. I caught up with Hillary Clinton in a tented area, as she was about to walk out to deliver her speech, to let her know about this latest development.
While her eyes opened wide with surprise, she shook her head, then simply said, “OK, keep me posted,” as though it was just another hiccup, and walked out on stage.
On the plane after the event, we heard that the letter Comey had sent to Congress was out. It turned out that the Southern District of New York, which was prosecuting Anthony’s case involving the teenager, had found emails of mine on his laptop and to this day I do not know where or how because I never knew they were there. They called the FBI’s New York office, who then called the DC office, which meant the laptop ended up with Comey. They didn’t alert Anthony’s attorneys or mine. I watched Clinton’s face as she processed it.
The moment she made eye contact with me, I just broke down.
I had held it together for months – through the night of the shocking photo, all the meetings with Children’s Services, the paparazzi on the street, becoming a single parent overnight, the daily hate messages. But now that I knew the investigation somehow involved my own email, tears flowed out of me. Clinton stood up from her seat, came over to hug me and then walked with me to the bathroom so I could compose myself. On a plane full of colleagues, Secret Service agents, reporters, photographers – everyone with eyes simultaneously averted and questioning – she did that.
When I got home that night, heart pounding furiously, I called Anthony at the treatment facility he had entered. It seemed he hadn’t heard the news because he had no idea what I was talking about.
“How could your emails be on my laptop?” he asked. It was a question neither of us can answer to this day. Then he went into Anthony mode, where there is a solution to every problem: “I am sure it’s a mistake and they will figure it out.” His attitude was confident, almost dismissive.
“Anthony,” I said, wanting to shake him through the phone, “if she loses this election, it will be because of you and me.”
That night, I wrote one line in my notebook. “I do not know how I am going to survive this. Help me God.”
This is an edited extract from Huma Abedin’s memoir, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, published by Simon & Schuster at £20. To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.