Moments before President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address Tuesday evening, Hillary Clinton shared a statement on Facebook about her decision to not fire an adviser on her 2008 campaign who was accused of sexually harassing another staff member.
On January 26, The New York Times reported that Clinton's 2008 faith adviser, Burns Strider, was accused of touching a female staffer inappropriately and sending suggestive emails. Multiple campaign advisers urged Clinton to fire Strider at the time. Instead, Clinton decided to move the female staffer to a different position, ordered Strider to attend counseling, and docked his pay.
Clinton addressed the news on Saturday, tweeting that she was "dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed."
The former presidential candidate continued to receive heavy backlash for keeping Strider on staff. She then published a longer statement on Tuesday night that said, "The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t."
"I didn’t think firing him was the best solution to the problem," she said, explaining her mindset at the time. "He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe. I thought both could happen without him losing his job."
Ten years later, however, Clinton says that she regrets the decision to ignore her advisers' recommendations to fire him.
"I’ve been given second chances and I have given them to others," she continued. "I want to continue to believe in them. But sometimes they’re squandered. In this case, while there were no further complaints against him for the duration of the campaign, several years after working for me he was terminated from another job for inappropriate behavior. That reoccurrence troubles me greatly, and it alone makes clear that the lesson I hoped he had learned while working for me went unheeded. Would he have done better—been better—if I had fired him? 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."
In the statement, Clinton explains that she reassigned the female staffer to work directly for her deputy campaign manager, and that she "flourished" in her new role. As she previously revealed on Twitter, Clinton says that she called the former staffer, who told her she "was glad that her accusations were taken seriously, that there was a clear process in place for dealing with harassment, and that it was followed." Clinton adds, "She’s read every word of this and has given me permission to share it."
Clinton finished by saying she's been "grappling with this and thinking about how best to share my thoughts." She concluded: "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."
You can read the full statement on Facebook.
