Muslim Brotherhood allegations Five Republican members of Congress (
Michele Bachmann of Minnesota,
Trent Franks of Arizona,
Louie Gohmert of Texas,
Thomas J. Rooney of Florida, and
Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia) sent a letter dated June 13, 2012, to the
State Department Inspector General. The letter claimed Abedin "has three family members—her late father, her mother and her brother—connected to
Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations." The letter further alleged Abedin had "immediate family connections to foreign extremist organizations" which were "potentially disqualifying conditions for obtaining a
security clearance" and questioned why Abedin had not been disqualified for a security clearance. Senator
John McCain, Republican of Arizona, also rejected the allegations.
Outside employment while at State Department Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Chuck Grassley raised questions about Abedin's outside employment during her tenure as a State Department employee. While serving as a part-time aide to Clinton at the State Department, Abedin worked for the consulting firm
Teneo Holdings The State Department and Abedin both responded, with the State Department indicating that it uses special government employees routinely "to provide services and expertise that executive agencies require", and Abedin stating that she did not provide any government information or inside information gained from her State Department job to her private employers. Grassley said he found the letters unresponsive. Abedin's attorneys said that she had learned in May that the Department's inspector general had found that she improperly collected $9,857 for periods when she was on vacation or leave, responded with a 12-page letter contesting the findings, and formally requested an administrative review of the investigation's conclusions. In October 2015, a federal court in Washington, D.C., heard arguments on a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by conservative watchdog organization
Judicial Watch for records related to Abedin. Judicial Watch asked to make Abedin's emails and employment records public, requesting details of the arrangement under which she was designated a "special government employee", allowing her to also perform outside consulting work while on the federal payroll. On October 6, the State Department said it would be able to hand over 69 pages of emails in response to the FOIA request.
Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy In 2015, emails by Abedin became part of the
FBI investigation and controversy concerning Hillary Clinton's private email account while she was Secretary of State, resulting in various allegations by Republicans of violations of State Department regulations. Some officials within the intelligence community have stated that classified information was contained in e-mails from Abedin relating to the 2012 Benghazi attack and its aftermath, which had been sent through Clinton's private, non-government server. As of February 2016, 1,818 emails were found containing classified information on the private server; 22 of those were classified as Top Secret. They were not marked classified at the time they were sent, but they did contain classified information. Clinton's aides also sent and received classified information. On October 28, 2016, shortly before the 2016 presidential election, the FBI announced that while investigating illicit text messages allegedly sent from Abedin's then-husband,
Anthony Weiner, to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, they had discovered emails related to Clinton's private server on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner. FBI Director
James Comey said the agency would review the e-mails to see if they contained classified material. Clinton called for the FBI to release its findings as soon as possible. The FBI's New York field office was conducting the Weiner investigation and found Abedin's emails on the computer. They then stopped their work and contacted the team of investigators from FBI headquarters who had handled the probe of Clinton's private email server. The investigators saw enough of the emails to decide that they seemed pertinent to the Clinton server investigation and that they might be emails not seen before. Because they felt they needed a warrant specific to Abedin's emails, officials did not examine them further at that time. Abedin cooperated with the investigation, according to Justice Department and FBI officials. Abedin has stated that she does not know how her e-mails came to be on Weiner's laptop. On October 30, 2016, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the Abedin-linked emails found on Weiner's laptop. Authorities indicated that Abedin used the same laptop to send thousands of emails to Clinton. On November 6, in a letter to Congress, the FBI said that, after reviewing all of Clinton's emails from her tenure as Secretary of State, it had not changed its conclusion reached in July exonerating Clinton. Clinton went on to lose the election to
Donald Trump on November 8, 2016. She later asserted that if the election had been held prior to the release of Comey's letter to Congress announcing the reopening of his investigation, she would have prevailed. Analyst
Nate Silver opined that the Comey letter probably cost Clinton the election. Abedin addressed this issue in her 2021 memoir,
Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds; after Comey's letter to Congress became public, she told Weiner that if Clinton were to lose the election, "'it will be because of you and me'".
House Benghazi Committee testimony On October 16, 2015, Abedin testified in closed session before the
House Select Committee on Benghazi, in a session that was expected to focus on the
2012 Benghazi attack during which Ambassador
J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The Republican-led committee's top Democratic representative,
Elijah Cummings of Maryland, questioned the panel's decision to hear testimony from Abedin, arguing that her knowledge of details at the time of the attacks was minimal. Before almost eight hours of testimony, Abedin said: "I came here today to be as helpful as I could be to the committee." == Personal life ==