In 2015, Anthony Weiner used drones to spy on Jeb Bush's presidential campaign.
I have known about this for some time, but my source only agreed to let me tell the story just now.
Here's what happened. In the summer of 2015, Jeb Bush had a fundraiser in the Hamptons at someone's personal residence. At the time, he was widely viewed as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. One hundred and fifty or so guests gathered on the lawn for the event. As Bush began to make his remarks, a drone appeared about twenty feet over the crowd's heads. It was a substantial one with four propellers and a camera, and it made a fair bit of noise.
Jeb made a crack that it was probably "Hillary spying on us," and the crowd laughed. The host and his family debated getting a shotgun to deal with the problem but decided they weren't sure of the legality. After a few minutes, the drone exited. Two of Bush's staffers followed out the driveway and down the road a bit. There, they saw two men load the drone into a station wagon.
One of them was unmistakably Anthony Weiner.
If you are fuzzy on the grand timeline of Anthony Weiner's personal descent, 2015 was after he'd been caught on at least two different occasions sexting with women on Twitter - Carlos Danger, remember? - and also after he had his mayoral campaign implode. It was prior to the underage sexting that got him sent to the big house. Basically, he was in the wilderness, both socially and politically, with little to occupy his days, although he was still married to Huma Abedin.
He needed a way to find redemption, a purpose. Was it by doing black bag ops for Hillary?
One can imagine how the video footage might have been used by the Clinton campaign. "See Jeb Bush Hanging Out with His Billionaire Buddies in the Hamptons!" (Never mind that Hillary raised money there as well, and probably knew more billionaires than Jeb.)
The idea that Weiner might have run this operation without the express approval of both Hillary and Huma Abedin seems implausible. They probably tasked him with this because he literally had nothing else to do and was eager to win back any sort of role for himself. (We've all seen how self-deluded Weiner could be.)
That Weiner and the Clinton machine would pull a stunt like this isn't in the least bit surprising. What is surprising is that the Bush campaign knew exactly what happened and did nothing with the information. Use of a drone to spy on a political rival is scandalous, and would have been so at the time, and yet Jeb sat on it.
Low energy, indeed.
Anyone think the Trump campaign might have dealt with the situation differently? Republicans nominated Trump precisely because he was the counter-puncher they craved after decades of Republicans who always knew their place.
Like Jeb.
If this had happened at a Trump campaign event, "Dronegate" would today be part of the national lexicon.
Does this story have current relevance? Certainly not for Weiner; he is a man of irrelevance and will be for the rest of his life. But Hillary Clinton still inserts herself into the national conversation and some think she might run again. Of course, she would deny any of this, but maybe Weiner himself is just desperate enough for public attention (of any kind) that he might just own up to his dirty tricks.
