FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Clinton finally admits she was wrong about campaign staffer accused of harassment

"If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t” let him keep his job, she said.

Hillary Clinton, who built her political career and nearly became president with a message of female empowerment, said she should have fired a 2008 campaign adviser who was accused of sexual harassment, following a wave of public debate over the matter.

“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 wrote on Facebook shortly before Tuesday’s State of the Union address. “The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t.”

Advertisement

A young woman on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign accused Burns Strider, who was Clinton’s faith-based adviser, of repeated sexual harassment like inappropriate shoulder rubs and suggestive email messages, but Clinton chose not to fire him, even after two campaign advisers who looked into the matter recommended it.

Instead, Clinton demoted Strider, docked his pay, and separated him from the woman, who remains anonymous because of a non-disclosure agreement campaign employees signed.

She also mandated Strider seek counseling, but according to The New York Times, which first reported the allegations Friday, he never followed through with it, and he was later hired and fired from a pro-Clinton super PAC supporting her 2016 run after another young woman accused him of sexual harassment.

“I didn’t consider it excessive, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t to her,” Strider told Buzzfeed on Saturday, regarding the allegations from the 2008 campaign.

It’s not the first time Clinton has been scrutinized for continuing to associate with men accused of sexual misconduct. The writer and actress Lena Dunham told the New York Times she warned the 2016 Clinton campaign about associating with Harvey Weinstein, but the campaign maintained their ties to producer anyway.