poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201608/1873/1155968404_5103424915001_5054222745001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Clinton aide Abedin dumps Weiner after more lewd texts The high-powered couple had been 'estranged' for about a year, a person close to Abedin said. 
 
 Top Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin on Monday announced she is separating from her husband, Anthony Weiner, after six rocky years of marriage during which the couple’s shared vision of a political future together has been disrupted multiple times by humiliating revelations of the former congressman’s compulsive sexting habit. 
 
 "After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband," Abedin said in a statement. "Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life. During this difficult time, I ask for respect for our privacy." 
 
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 The announcement comes after the New York Post reported on Sunday night about Weiner's latest sexually explicit messages with another woman. Weiner, who has been married to Abedin since July 2010, resigned from Congress in 2011 after mistakenly tweeting an explicit image of himself intended as a direct message. 
 
 Abedin, who was embarrassed by Weiner's decision to permit filmmakers to document his failed 2013 failed New York City mayoral run, was hoping to end the marriage outside the glare of the mid-campaign cameras. But the new images — especially the image of Weiner in underwear on a bed next to their young son — were simply too much to bear, said one Abedin friend. 
 
 A person close to Abedin said the couple has been "estranged" for about a year and "essentially" separated — although they still share both their Manhattan apartment and parenting duties. Over the past few months, people close to the couple have painted a portrait of a marriage on the verge of collapse, and reporters covering the campaign have noticed in recent weeks that Abedin has often appeared in public without her wedding or engagement rings. 
 
 They have, however, made high-profile public appearances together during that time. In May, for instance, the couple attended the celebrity-studded Met Ball and posed for society column photographers together. And in a glossy profile in Vogue magazine earlier this month, Abedin credited her husband’s willingness to function as a “full-time dad” as part of the support system that allowed her to take on such a demanding role in the campaign. 
 
 Abedin, according to two people in her orbit, didn't know the Post story was in the works before heading to the Hamptons for her annual working vacation with the Clintons — who have been ferociously fundraising — and Clinton intimates like Cheryl Mills, along with Abedin's own family, including her sister Heba and her son Jordan. Weiner was not invited, they told POLITICO. 
 
 "She wasn't fleeing the media," said a person close to the longtime Clinton body woman — whom the Democratic nominee has likened to a second daughter. "But it worked out for the best, being surrounded by her family and her friends ... It's a difficult day but she'll get through it." 
 
 Several other Abedin friends and colleagues expressed similar sentiments: While they were concerned for her well-being over the next few days and weeks, they are happy that Weiner was being given his walking papers. "Anything that ensures he's no longer around is good news," said one fellow Clinton staffer. 
 
 And Clinton allies immediately rallied around Abedin. “Huma is like family, not just to Hillary Clinton, but to the … whole campaign” Jennifer Granholm, vice chair of Clinton’s transition committee said on MSNBC. “She is like the glue. And I'm sure that the whole campaign is hoping that people respect her privacy and grieve with her over what is happening.” 
 
 But some allies are privately expressing concern that Abedin’s high public profile — she is a near-constant presence by Clinton’s side and has become a celebrity in her own right, with fans even stopping her for selfies — could enable her personal story to overshadow Clinton’s message in the final 70 days of the campaign. 
 
 “It would be helpful for her to take a step back from the campaign for a while,” said one Clinton ally close to the campaign, “or at least get off the campaign trail and work in Brooklyn. But I doubt that is going to happen.” 
 
 Another Clinton ally expressed concern that Abedin would remain a target — of the media and of Donald Trump — if she remained in the spotlight. 
 
 But campaign aides said there was no indication that Abedin’s personal life will affect her professional role as a key player in Clinton’s traveling inner circle. “The sentiment has been one thing and one thing only: We only want to do what is in the best interest of Huma,” said a Clinton aide. 
 
 In conversations Sunday evening and Monday morning, among a brain trust of about seven staffers and confidantes in Clinton’s inner circle, the idea of Abedin taking a step back for the critical final months of the campaign was never broached, the aide said. “We are entirely focused on the fact that Huma needs to do what she needs to do, and we’re going to help her.” 
 
 Clinton herself, longtime associates said, is likely to return the support and loyalty of one of her longest-serving aides. “She’s going to want to be supportive of her, and tell her, ‘whatever you want to do,’” said one Clinton confidante. And Abedin is known among her colleagues as someone who feels most comfortable, and derives most of her power, when in close proximity to the candidate. 
 
 But over the past year, she has already been slowly backing off of some of the more quotidian campaign travel days in an effort to shed her “body woman” persona. She did travel with Clinton for her latest fundraising swing through California, for instance, but served more as a sort of campaign ambassador to celebrities and big donors. And on regular campaign days, she has been working from the office more often than the road. 
 
 Abedin, who has fended off Republican attacks for years, has come under renewed scrutiny for her role in handling requests from Bill Clinton aide Doug Band, who peppered the secretary of state’s office with requests for meetings with Clinton Foundation donors, according to recently released emails. The Clinton campaign has dismissed as “cherry-picking” an Associated Press investigation finding that the Democratic nominee met with dozens of foundation donors as secretary. 
 
 The future seems uncertain for Weiner, whose Twitter account had vanished Monday morning after the Post's report. And in another sign of the expanding fallout, New York Daily News opinion editor Josh Greenman confirmed to POLITICO that the newspaper will no longer run his column, which it has published since 2014. The local station NY1, where Weiner was a regular paid talking head, also placed him on "indefinite leave," CNN reported. 
 
 The former congressman has resurfaced repeatedly in 2016, in part due to the documentary that he said Abedin never consented to doing (a spokeswoman for the filmmaker told The New York Times that everyone had consented to appearing in the film), and in no small measure thanks to Trump, who has also made repeated digs at Clinton for her association with Weiner as Abedin's husband. 
 
 On Monday, Trump praised Abedin for "making a very wise decision," though he took a shot at her boss for good measure. 
 
 "I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him," the Republican nominee said in a statement. "I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this." 
 
 Trump was more colorful during an interview Monday on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM’s “The Dori Monson Show.” 
 
 “Here’s a guy that what he’s done over the internet is disgusting, and he’s a pervert and just a very sick guy,” he said. “He’s a sick puppy, and so, you know, it just happened and it’s, you know, it’s actually sad in many ways,” adding that Weiner’s behavior was “hard to comprehend.” 
 
 Speaking to the Times' Mark Leibovich in an interview published earlier this month, Weiner dodged a pointed question about whether he was still doing the same things that had previously caused trouble to him and those around him. Instead, Weiner used the query as an opportunity to score political points against Trump. 
 
 "I’m not going to go down the path of talking about any of that. But I will say this: There’s no doubt that the Trump phenomenon has led a lot of people to say to me, 'Boy, compared to inviting the Russians to come hack someone’s email, your thing seems almost quaint,'" Weiner said, referring to Trump's self-described "sarcastic" request for the Russians to leak the contents of Clinton's deleted emails. 
 
 Trump has shared his thoughts about the disgraced congressman on multiple occasions through his various sexting controversies and failed mayoral comeback bid. 
 
 "Wife Huma wants @RepWeiner to 'pull a @billclinton by giving a tell-all interview.' Unlike Clinton, Anthony is a sick puppy," Trump tweeted on July 16, 2012, after writing, "he's a sexual pervert & they can never be healed. Huma should drop him before it happens again." 
 
 Asked by a Twitter user in July 2013 what advice he would give Abedin, Trump responded, "Take off!" 
 
 "Huma should dump the sicko Weiner. He is a calamity that is bringing her down with him," Trump wrote on Sept. 23, 2013. 
 
 Months after launching his presidential campaign, Trump suggested that Weiner was a security risk. 
 
 "It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails," Trump tweeted on Aug. 31, 2015. "Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world." 
 
 Granholm on Monday called Trump's warnings about potentially compromised national secrets "ridiculous." 
 
 "I think that Donald Trump and everyone else should respect the privacy of Huma Abedin who is, as you know, an utterly graceful, wonderful human being who's going through a terrible situation," the former Michigan governor said on MSNBC. "So I say let us respect their privacy, and it's nonsense about classified information." 
 
 Nolan McCaskill contributed to this report. ||||| Confessions from New York Rep. Anthony Weiner that he lied about sexting photos to a Seattle woman and at least five others over the past three years have shaken his barely 11-month marriage to Huma Abedin. 
 
 Weiner's wife has kept quiet and out of the public eye, and put her head down at the State Department, where she is a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
 
 In fact, Abedin will be on a plane bound for Africa with Clinton Wednesday evening, officials told ABC News' Claire Shipman. The officials said Abedin's been working non-stop since the scandal broke, and "hasn't missed a beat." They added that "she is committed to her marriage," and that "they love each other." 
 
 Abedin, 34, has endured humiliating headlines in The New York Post -- "ballooning scandal," "Hide the Weiner" and "What a Weenie" -- after word got out that 21-year-old Gennette Cordova received the now-infamous photo of a man's crotch from the congressman's Twitter account. 
 
 In a tear-stained, half-hour press conference Monday, the Democratic congressman said his wife would stand by him, despite the week-old scandal. 
 
 "We have no intention of splitting over this," said Weiner, 46, who added he will not resign from the House. "We will weather this. I love her. She loves me." 
 
 He said that he had told his wife about sexting with women before their marriage, but not about recent activities online, including one with single mom Meagan Broussard that began in April of this year. 
 
 Weiner said he has never met these women in person and has not had sex outside marriage. 
 
 The congressman said Abedin only learned the truth Monday when he told her about the sexting. She didn't show up for the press conference. 
 
 "Anybody who is so imprudent to do any of this, is mind-boggling to me," wrote Roxanne Roberts about the affair in the gossip column, "The Reliable Source," which she co-authors for the Washington Post. "From a purely practical standpoint -- what was he thinking?" 
 
 ABCNews.com made calls to both Weiner and Abedin that were not returned. 
 
 The couple -- with some irony noted by pundits -- was married last July by former President Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 over an affair with Monica Lewinsky. 
 
 When he officiated at the Long Island ceremony, Bill Clinton reportedly toasted Abedin, saying she was like a daughter to him. 
 
 Hillary Clinton weathered the same public humiliation when her husband was unfaithful with a White House intern, yet chose to stand by her man. 
 
 "The thought did cross into my mind -- 'Who is the person most upset about these circumstances?' -- and I am guessing it's probably a tie," said Roberts. "I bet it's both these women." 
 
 "[Abedin] has been extremely private about her longtime relationship working for Hillary Clinton," she said. "She has established a reputation for someone completely loyal and utterly discreet." 
 
 Whether she takes the Clinton's path or ultimately leaves Weiner is anyone's guess. 
 
 "I would never even attempt to speculate," said Roberts. "Nobody knows much about her emotional life or how she will likely process this. It all goes back to the old dictum -- you can't know what a marriage is like by just looking in." 
 
 Abedin began her career in 1996 as a White House intern, then later served as Hillary Clinton's traveling chief of staff and "body woman" during her 2008 presidential campaign. 
 
 Born in Kalamazoo, Mich., she was the daughter of an Iranian scholar of Indian descent and Pakistani mother who is a sociology professor in Saudi Arabia, where she was raised. She came to the United States to attend George Washington University. 
 
 Huma Abedin Featured in Vogue 
 
 Strikingly beautiful, her only foray into the public eye was cooperating with a 2007 feature in Vogue magazine. During the interview she told the magazine that she "grew up in a very traditional family, but there was never anything I didn't think I could do." 
 
 "I remember going with my parents to weddings where the women would arrive covered in black veils, but underneath they'd be wearing the most exquisite brightly colored Dolce & Gabbana suits," said Abedin. "They were like peacocks showing off their tails." 
 
 Fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who is a friend of both Hillary Clinton and Abedin, called both women "workaholics." 
 
 He described Abedin as "an unbelievably feminine and gentle person, but at the same time she can accomplish so much." 
 
 He also noted that as a practicing Muslim and Arabic speaker, "she's very conservative." 
 
 Actress Mary Steenburgen, a longtime friend of the secretary of state, said in the same article that the two women's relationship was "more like an older sister-younger sister." 
 
 Weiner was described in a 2007 New York Observer article as "a swingingly single Brooklyn Democrat." In that same article he described Abedin's ability to hold up under pressure, "preternaturally." 
 
 "This notion that Senator Clinton is a cool customer -- I mean, I don't dispute it, but the coolest customer in that whole operation is Huma," he said. "In fact, I think there's some dispute as to whether Huma's actually human or not." 
 
 Press reports have called Abedin, "unflappable," but that may not still be the case. 
 
 "He's in deep, deep trouble," said Judy Kuriansky, a psychologist who specializes in relationships and teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University. 
 
 "This is really horrendous -- this puts her in an extremely compromised position," said Kuriansky. "Whatever she decides to do, I believe she is consulting with Hillary." 
 
 "To my mind, psychologically, she has other people to please and this happens with other wives," she said. "You must take that into account." 
 
 Unlike the Clintons, who have a daughter Chelsea, the Weiners have no children, which may shape Abedin's ultimate decision, according to Kuriansky. 
 
 "Whether there are children involved and the length of the marriage, those are the really big ones," she said. "There is the real world and the economic bargain. But I don't think that's a problem here. She has her own life and has her own career and money." 
 
 Kuriansky, like Roberts, is shocked that Weiner and so many other notable male politicians have risked their political futures for sex -- virtual or otherwise. 
 
 "We could go on and on, we have seen this many times before," said Kuriansky. "It's the same thing for all of them. They are high-energy people. They direct it erroneously into the sexual area and should direct it somewhere else. You saw it in JFK and Jefferson -- they feel privileged or they get away with it and think they are above the law." 
 
 Eliot Spitzer, another New York Democrat, resigned as New York governor in 2008 after being caught cavorting with New Jersey prostitute Ashley Dupre. He is now a news commentator for CNN. 
 
 Monday night, just after the scandal broke open, Spitzer interviewed political pundits, openly disclosing to the TV audience his own sordid affair. 
 
 "Not only do they get away with it, they get higher in their careers," said Kuriansky. "People forgive and forget and go on. It's the same with rock stars and celebrities. They are allowed. As Americans we make a big to-do, then we give them a pass." ||||| Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner’s wife, said new sexual photos that have come forward today has been painful but for the most part the episode has been put behind them. 
 
 “Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after,” she said. “I love him … I have forgiven him … we are moving forward.” 
 
 She said that their marriage has had its ups and downs. “It took a lot of work and a lot of therapy… it was not an easy choice in any way but I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage.” 
 
 “I didn’t know how it would work out, but I did know that I wanted to give it a try,” she said. 
 
 Weiner said that he has put the sexting incidents behind him and he and his wife are doing a lot better. The press conference was called after a new series of correspondence between him and a woman while he used the an online handle “Carlos Danger” came to light on July 23. 
 
 Weiner resigned as U.S. congressman in 2011 after he admitted sending sexually explicit photos of himself, or sexting, to women online. He said on Tuesday that his last time doing this was “sometime last summer.” He is currently a candidate for New York City mayor. 
 
 Abedin works for Hilary Clinton. 
 
 Also on July 23, Bill de Blasio, current public advocate for New York City and fellow mayoral candidate to Weiner, called for Weiner to withdraw from the race. 
 
 “People are hurting in this city. They are looking to this election for a mayor to address the issues they care about,” de Blasio said. “But the sideshows of this election have gotten in the way of this event.”
– Huma Abedin is separating from Anthony Weiner after his latest online sexcapades, this time involving a series of sexts apparently sent between Weiner and an unnamed "40-something divorcee." But a source said to be close to Abedin tells Politico the couple had already been "estranged" and more or less separated for about a year, despite still being holed up in the same Manhattan digs and sharing parenting duties for their young son. Meanwhile, Weiner foe Donald Trump says in a statement, per the New York Times, that while he applauds Abedin for making a "wise decision" to leave her husband, Hillary Clinton has been "careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information" because of his marriage. "Who knows what he learned and who he told?" Trump said. Reaction on Twitter to the man who lived by Twitter and metaphorically died by Twitter—Weiner has apparently deactivated or deleted his Twitter account—has been firing back and forth Monday faster than someone can post a scandalous selfie. Check out a few in our photo gallery that stand out (and scroll through Twitter for a seemingly endless stream of more).