(The Hill) – Huma Abedin, a longtime top aide to Hillary Clinton and the estranged wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), writes in a new book that she was sexually assaulted by an unidentified U.S. senator in the mid-2000s.
Abedin writes in her forthcoming book, “Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds,” that she attended a dinner in Washington, D.C., with “a few senators and their aides” and then stopped at one of the lawmakers’ homes for a cup of coffee.
She said she was invited in after the two had stopped inside his building and was told by the senator to “make myself comfortable on the couch,” according to The Guardian, which obtained a copy of her book, set to be released on Nov. 2.
Abedin said the senator proceeded to make her a cup of coffee before he took a seat beside her on the couch and started kissing her.
“Then, in an instant, it all changed. He plopped down to my right, put his left arm around my shoulder, and kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth, pressing me back on the sofa,” Abedin writes.
She said she pushed him away and was “utterly shocked,” adding that all she wanted “was for the last 10 seconds to be erased.”
Abedin said the senator was surprised and apologized that he “misread” her “all this time.” She writes that she was deciding how to leave “without this ending badly.”
“Then I said something only the twentysomething version of me would have come up with — ‘I am so sorry’ — and walked out, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible,” she said.
The Clinton aide said she avoided the senator “for a few days” but ultimately crossed paths with him on Capitol Hill. She recalls nodding when he asked if they were still friends.
Abedin also writes that she “buried the incident,” adding that her memory of the alleged assault came back to mind during proceedings for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2018, which was mired by allegations of sexual assault.
She said her memory resurfaced when reading about Christine Blasey Ford “being accused of ‘conveniently’ remembering” her alleged assault.