Trump resurrects Abedin ‘theories’
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has invoked long-disputed conspiracy theories to suggest Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide of Indian descent, had links to Islamic extremists.
“You know, by the way, take a look at where she worked... and at where her mother worked and works,” Trump said in a radio interview about Abedin.
Other Republicans have been less subtle, demanding in the past an investigation of those links, going so far as to allege she is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
Abedin, who served Clinton as her deputy chief of staff at the state department, has been under attack from Republicans for her role in her boss’s use of a private email server.
Abedin, whose father was from India and mother from Pakistan, announced on Monday she is separating from her husband Anthony Weiner, a one-time congressman found to have been involved in a new sexting scandal, his third.
She had been a target of conspiracy theories linking her to Islamic extremists, stemming from her brief association with the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which is edited by her mother Saleha Mahmood Abedin. The journal was founded by Abedin’s father, Syed Zainul Abedin.
Trump invoked those same theories in the Monday interview to suggest, without saying it in as many words unlike others who have been more direct, Abedin was linked to extremism.