Subject: Re: Huma vs. the “Night Stalkers” | Vanity Fair
From: "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>
To: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 21:11:58 -0500

Not one of these people has an iota of shame.

On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 3:42 PM, Eric Schwerin <[email-masked]
> wrote:

>
> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/huma-abedin-life-after-clinton
>
> Huma vs. the “Night Stalkers”After a stunning election loss, the knives
> appear to be out in Clintonworld.
> December 14, 2016 5:00 am
>
> By Aaron P. Bernstein/REUTERS.
>
> “Maybe I’m just pissed off, but I really don’t give a shit about what
> happens to *Huma* <http://www.vanityfair.com/people/huma-abedin> to be
> honest with you,” one close adviser to *Hillary Clinton*
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/people/hillary-clinton> told me recently. He
> was irked, in particular, at Abedin’s seemingly superfluous breach of
> decorum during a post-election event. On the day after Hillary Clinton’s
> stunning loss to *Donald Trump,*
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/people/donald-trump> this person said, Abedin
> appeared within the rope line while Clinton greeted her morose and
> woebegone supporters. “You’re staff, O.K.?” this adviser continued. “Staff
> is staff. You’re not a principal.” (A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign
> notes that Abedin was seated alongside the rest of the campaign’s senior
> leadership team that morning. Abedin declined an interview request.)
>
> In the bizarre month since Clinton’s loss, few people besides the
> candidate herself have seen their fortunes overturned as significantly as
> has Abedin, 40, the glamorous and charismatic former vice-chair of the
> campaign. For two decades, Abedin has been a fixture inside Clinton’s inner
> circle; she began her career as a college-aged White House intern and rose
> to become Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department. As a
> former adviser to *Bill Clinton* once put it to me
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser>,
> over time Abedin morphed into “a mini Hillary” herself. She wasn’t merely
> an aide, but rather an amalgamation of adviser, best friend, confidante,
> and perhaps even surrogate daughter. Abedin “inspires loyalty, and she’s
> loyal back,” one Clinton aide told *Amy Chozick* in her widely read dissection
> of Clintonworld
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/magazine/hillary-clinton.html?_r=0>
> for *The New York Times Magazine*, in 2014.
>
> In fact, according to Chozick, Clinton appeared to countermand those who
> suggested that Abedin should be relegated on behalf of the sexting antics
> of her spouse, the randy former congressman *Anthony Weiner*
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/anthony-weiner-sexting-investigation>.
> Clinton, Chozick reported at the time, appeared more concerned with
> quarantining the so-called “night stalkers”—sycophants and hangers-on from
> her many decades in public life—who might try to re-exert their influence.
> Abedin, meanwhile, was widely expected to get a big job inside a Clinton
> White House.
>
> *VIDEO: The Evolution of Hillary Rodham Clinton*
>
> But amid Clinton’s stunning post-election hangover, some inside the inner
> circle wonder if Abedin became overwhelmed by the attention, and shut too
> many people out. “She was enjoying the red carpet and enjoying the photo
> spreads much too much in my opinion,” one Clinton insider told me. “She
> enjoyed being a celebrity too much.” The close Clinton adviser elaborated
> that Abedin and the other tight-knit circle of people may have suffocated
> Clinton, preventing the campaign from taking in outside counsel. “The real
> anger is toward Hillary’s inner circle
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/hillary-clinton-inside-circle-huma-abedin>,”
> the Clinton insider told me. “They reinforced all the bad habits.” For
> instance, the suggestion had been made that Clinton should show her
> gregarious side, by, for instance, appearing more often on *The View*.
> (She appeared once, but *Bernie Sanders
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/people/bernie-sanders#intcid=dt-hot-link>,*
> her rival for the nomination, appeared a handful of times.)
>
> According to this person, however, the inner circle nixed that idea. It
> seemed, this person elaborated, that even minor suggestions about changing
> the narrative fell on deaf ears. “Right away,” this person continued, “it
> was either regarded as an intrusion or a naïve suggestion or maybe someone
> has an agenda. And so people just stopped bothering. Where in most
> presidential campaigns the circle grows broader and broader, hers grew
> smaller and smaller.” (A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign refutes this
> characterization, noting that the campaign may have had up to three times
> as many people on their plane during the election’s final weeks.)
>
> In the month since the election, Abedin, once ubiquitous, has essentially
> vanished from public view. She was absent from the recent, and public,
> campaign exhumation
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/why-trumps-aides-have-been-such-sore-winners>
> that occurred at Harvard’s Kennedy School, during which her former
> colleagues tussled with Trump supporters such as *Kellyanne Conway* and *Corey
> Lewandowski.* Recently, the *Daily Mail* captured
> <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3997904/Huma-Abedin-spotted-taking-retail-therapy-one-day-reports-surface-estranged-husband-Anthony-Weiner-broke-afford-sexting-rehab.html>
> Abedin shopping at the Lululemon store on lower Fifth Avenue with her
> four-year-old son, *Jordan,* in tow. The story followed a report
> <http://pagesix.com/2016/12/02/anthony-weiner-too-broke-to-stay-in-sex-rehab/>
> in the *New York Post* noting that Weiner, in the wake of his most recent
> sexting scandal, had cut short his rehab stay after about 30 days,
> supposedly because he ran out of money. (His family had wanted him to stay
> for 90 days, at a cost of around $1,000 per day, *Richard Johnson*
> reported in Page Six, and his parents reportedly took out a mortgage on
> their home to help him pay for the cost of the treatment.)
>
> Compounding Weiner’s financial woes, in early December, the New York City
> Campaign Finance Board fined him
> <http://nypost.com/2016/12/01/anthony-weiner-gets-screwed-by-city-auditors/>
> more than $65,000 for a variety of infractions related to his mayoral
> campaign. Weiner apparently spent $600 of his campaign funds on
> televisions, another $1,539 on his personal dry-cleaning and cell-phone
> service, and more than $115,000 for a group of expenditures after the
> campaign was over. Weiner was also ordered to repay some $195,000
> <http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2016/12/cfb-orders-anthony-weiners-campaign-ordered-to-repay-195-000-in-matching-funds-107757>
> in matching campaign funds. *Preet Bharara,* the U.S. Attorney in the
> Southern District of New York, is reportedly investigating
> <http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/22/politics/first-on-cnn-us-attorney-investigating-weiner-sexting-allegations/>
> Weiner’s latest round of sexting, along with the F.B.I. and the New York
> City police.
>
> Aside from Weiner’s public *mishegas*, Abedin has her own problems—namely
> coming to grips with the blame
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/huma-abedin-anthony-weiner-clinton.html>
> directed at her for the new stash of Clinton e-mails that ended up on his
> personal computer and that became the focus of F.B.I. director *James
> Comey’s* now infamous late-October letter to Congress. In the wake of her
> loss, Clinton told donors that Comey’s letter had cost her the election
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/clinton-blames-comey-for-election-loss>.
> Fairly or not, many people blame Comey’s letter with abruptly changing the
> narrative about Clinton at the penultimate moment of the campaign (despite
> his subsequent November 6 letter saying nothing new of substance was found
> on the computer).
>
> But perhaps Abedin’s biggest challenge is that she may soon have a new
> boss for virtually the first time in her life. The Clinton insider
> reiterated that Huma, who has spent 21 years at Clinton’s side, might need
> to prepare for the reality, moving forward, that her “juice” was “tied to
> Clinton’s ascendancy.” Nevertheless, this person continued, “she’s someone
> that will be sought after either personally or through business from many
> rich, very rich connected people.” He concluded: “She’ll do very well for
> herself.”
>
> On December 15, Clinton is having a big party in Manhattan at the Plaza
> Hotel, once owned by Trump, for her campaign donors, as a sort of thank-you
> and keep-in-touch farewell. It is expected to cost more than $100,000 and
> be paid for with excess campaign funds. Clintonworld insiders will be
> interested to see if Abedin shows up or whether she chooses to skip the
> celebration to stay at home to nurse her wounds.
> Full Screen
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/photos/2015/10/photos-how-hillary-clintons-loyal-confidants-could-cost-her-the-election>11
> Times Hillary Clinton Had Something Worth Whispering
> U.S. Chief of Protocol, Ambassador Capricia Penavic MarshallPhoto: By
> Greg E. Mathieson Sr./MAI/Landov.
>
>
> Eric D. Schwerin
> [email-masked]
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>

-- 

Alexander S. Mackler
(302) 598-867