Hillary Clinton said she would have handled things differently after keeping a top adviser on her 2008 presidential campaign on staff when he had been accused of sexually harassing another staffer, if she had to “do it again.”
According to the New York Times, Clinton did not fire faith adviser Burns Strider after hearing about the allegations, despite being recommended to do so by campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle. Rather, Strider was penalized, not receiving several weeks of pay, and was instructed to undergo counseling.
“I very much understand the question I’m being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior,” Clinton said.
“The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t,” she added.
Clinton noted that several years later Strider had been terminated after the campaign for inappropriate behavior.
“Would he have done better — been better — if I had fired him?” Clinton said. “Would he have gotten that next job? There is no way I can go back 10 years and know the answers. But you can bet I’m asking myself these questions right now.”
The 30-year-old woman claimed Strider touched her inappropriately by massaging her shoulders, kissing her forehead, and sending lewd emails. She ultimately was moved to a different job.
Clinton said she reached out to the woman following the New York Times report and noted that the woman felt supported at the time and still does. Clinton added the woman “flourished” in her new role on the campaign after she was moved.
“I was inspired by my conversation with this young woman to express my own thinking on the matter. You may question why it’s taken me time to speak on this at length,” Clinton wrote. “The answer is simple: I’ve been grappling with this and thinking about how best to share my thoughts. I hope that my doing so will push others to keep having this conversation — to ask and try to answer the hard questions, not just in the abstract but in the real-life contexts of our roles as men, women, bosses, employees, advocates, and public officials.”
“I hope that women will continue to talk and write about their own experiences and that they will continue leading this critical debate, which, done right, will lead to a better, fairer, safer country for us all,” she said in closing.
The statement was released just minutes before President Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
