Aaron Klein:
Missing from much of the news media coverage of FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last week that long-time top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin regularly forwarded classified emails to her husband, Anthony Weiner, is that the revelation directly contradicts Abedin’s own claims from last November about how the emails famously made it to Weiner’s laptop computer.
During last Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight, Comey stated Abedin appears to have engaged in a “regular practice of forwarding e-mails” to Weiner’s computer, possibly for him to print out.
The testimony, which came during an exchange with Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) about classified emails found on Weiner’s computer, went thusly:
KENNEDY: OK. Was there classified information on – on former Congressman Weiner’s computer?
COMEY: Yes.
KENNEDY: Who sent it to him?
COMEY: His then spouse, Huma Abedin, appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding e-mails to him, for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the Secretary of State.
Those details seem to contradict claims made by Abedin last November through her lawyer, Karen Dunn, immediately following reports that the FBI discovered possible Clinton emails on her estranged husband’s computer. Dunn claimed that Abedin did not know how the emails could have reached Weiner’s device and only learned about the possibility of emails being on Weiner’s laptop via media reports.
“She only learned for the first time on Friday, from press reports, of the possibility that a laptop belonging to Mr. Weiner could contain emails of hers. While the FBI has not contacted us about this, Ms. Abedin will continue to be, as she always has been, forthcoming and cooperative,” Dunn said in the statement.
Politico further quoted a “source familiar with Abedin’s account” as stating that, according to Politico’s portrayal, that Abedin “has told colleagues she was taken aback when she learned that the FBI found her emails on a laptop belonging to her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, and doesn’t know how the messages got there.”
That’s a far cry from Comey’s testimony that Abedin appears to have regularly forwarded Clinton emails to Weiner.
Wiener-wagging Weiner handling State Department classified information. What an administration!!