By Business Insider: Pamela Engel

Huma Abedin has been by Hillary Clinton’s side for decades as one
of her longest-serving aides, and now she’s at the center of an
FBI investigation that involves the Democratic presidential
nominee’s use of a private email server. Clinton’s critics have long focused on the 41-year-old Abedin
because of her close connection to Clinton.

Vanity Fair
noted in a profile of Abedin earlier this year that
she is often referred to as Clinton’s “second daughter.” She
follows Clinton nearly everywhere and is thought to be one of her
closest confidantes. Abedin started working for Clinton as an intern in
1996 when Clinton was the First Lady. Abedin had initially
wanted to go into journalism, but ended up sticking with Clinton
and following her from the White House to the Senate to the State
Department to the campaign trail. She’s now vice-chairwoman of
Clinton’s presidential campaign. And the email scandal isn’t the first controversy she’s
found herself at the center of.

Her ties to Saudi Arabia Abedin’s upbringing and family ties have been the sources of many conspiracy theories. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Pakistani mother and Indian father, and she spent much of her childhood in Saudi Arabia.

Her father founded a think tank called the Institute of Muslim
Minority Affairs and edited its Journal of Muslim Minority
Affairs. Abedin was
listed as an assistant editor at the publication from
1996 to 2008. The Clinton campaign has said she did not actually
edit articles at the publication, and has noted that her brother
and sister are listed as staff members there as well,
according to The Washington Post.

Her father died in 1993. Her mother is still an editor at the
Muslim journal.

The Post noted that the journal is not radical and that her
father was a moderate Muslim.

Her time working for Clinton at State

The Senate Judiciary Committee
investigated whether the State Department violated ethics
rules by allowing Abedin to remain on its payroll while also
doing work outside the government. The department granted Abedin
a special waiver to allow her work for the Clinton Foundation,
the consulting firm Teneo, and Clinton’s private office.

Reuters noted that the waiver Abedin received was initially
created decades ago to let the government temporarily bring
in experts from the private sector, which wouldn’t fit Abedin’s
description since she had been a government employee for years.

She has also been accused of arranging special access to the
State Department for Clinton Foundation donors.

Her marriage to Anthony Weiner

Abedin’s involvement in the latest FBI investigation
involving Clinton’s use of a private email server while she
was secretary of state stems from her marriage to former
congressman Anthony Weiner.

Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 in the wake of a sexting
scandal. He ran for mayor in 2013, but failed to win the election
after yet another sexting scandal came up.

The emails that are at the center of the FBI reopening its
investigation were uncovered after the FBI seized devices
belonging to Abedin and Weiner, according to reports. Prosecutors
issued a subpoena for Weiner’s cellphone and other records in
late September amid allegations that he had been sexting with a
15-year-old girl.