Hillary Clinton responded Tuesday to a report in the New York Times Friday that she declined to fire her faith adviser, Burns Strider, during her 2008 campaign after her campaign manager informed her of a sexual harassment complaint against him.
“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,” she wrote in a lengthy post on her Facebook page. “The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t.”
Clinton confirmed the Times’ reporting that, presented with her staff’s determination that Strider had “engaged in inappropriate behavior,” she “asked for steps that could be taken short of termination.”
“In the end, I decided to demote him, docking his pay; separate him from the woman; assign her to work directly for my then-deputy-campaign manager; put in place technical barriers to his emailing her; and require that he seek counseling,” she wrote. “He would also be warned that any subsequent harassment of any kind toward anyone would result in immediate termination.”
Clinton continued, explaining her decision: “I did this because I didn’t think firing him was the best solution to the problem. 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. I believed the punishment was severe and the message to him unambiguous.”
The Times also reported that Strider was fired from a Clinton-aligned super PAC, Correct the Record, in 2016, for similar reasons. Clinton did not address that in the Facebook post.
Read the full post — published minutes before President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address — below:
