August 29, 2016

Anthony Weiner Caught in Yet Another Sexting Scandal

The ex-congressman and husband to Clinton aide Huma Abedin has deleted his Twitter account.


Update, August 29, 11:27 a.m. EST: In a statement to NBC, Huma Abedin announced that she is planning to separate from her husband, Anthony Weiner.

Anthony Weiner appears to have deleted his Twitter account amid new allegations that the former New York congressman has been sending lewd messages to an unknown woman over the past 19 months, the New York Post reports. The report is the latest in a series of sexting scandals involving Weiner, including one that brought down his 2013 campaign to become the mayor of New York City.

One of the photos allegedly sent by Weiner, the husband of Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, includes their sleeping son.

When contacted by the Post, Weiner confirmed that he knew the woman, who is choosing to remain anonymous, but described their exchanges as private and “appropriate.”

The report on Monday is likely to intensify right-wing attacks against Abedin. For years, the long-serving aide to Clinton has been the target of conspiracy theories suggesting she is an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood. Recently, Donald Trump suggested that Abedin posed a security risk to Clinton’s campaign because she divulged national security secrets to Weiner (“a sleazeball and pervert”).

Weiner was forced to resign from Congress in 2011, after accidentally posting a risqué picture of himself on Twitter.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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