Hillary Clinton releases statement confirming she did not fire adviser accused of sexual harassment just before State of the Union

Hillary Clinton has confirmed reports that she refused to fire a former campaign adviser accused of sexual harassment, saying that she would not have made the same decision today.

The New York Times reported last week that Ms Clinton chose not to fire Burns Strider, the faith adviser from her 2008 campaign, after he was accused of inappropriately touching and emailing a campaign subordinate. Going against the suggestion of her campaign manager, Ms Clinton chose to dock her adviser’s pay and require him to enter therapy instead.

The news drew outcry from Ms Clinton’s opponents on the right, but also from some of her supporters on the left, where many women viewed the former Secretary of State as an example of how women could triumph over workplace sexism.

Reflecting on the decision in a 1,500-word Facebook post on Tuesday – just minutes before Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address – Ms Clinton said she did not think firing Mr Strider was the best solution to the problem at the time.

“He needed to be punished, change his behaviour, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe,” she wrote. “I thought both could happen without him losing his job.”

Ms Clinton added that she had also reassigned the alleged victim of Mr Strider’s harassment to report directly to her deputy campaign manager, and had put in place “technical barriers” to Mr Strider’s emailing her. She wrote that she had reached out to the alleged victim after the Times story was published, and that the woman told her she had “flourished” in her new campaign role.

Ms Clinton also wrote that she believed in second chances – “I’ve been given second chances and I have given them to others. I want to continue to believe in them,” she said – but that in this case the second chance had been squandered. Mr Strider was fired last year from his position with Correct the Record, an independent group supporting Ms Clinton’s 2016 campaign, after further allegations of sexual harassment.

Ms Clinton tweeted last week that she was "dismayed" by the allegations of harassment when they surfaced, but claimed the alleged victims concerns were "taken seriously and addressed".

Patti Solis Doyle, Ms Clinton’s former campaign manager, also spoke out about her version of events last week.

“The incident was brought to my attention and, you know, I did my due diligence,” Ms Doyle told CNN, “... [I] came to the conclusion that there was sexual harassment involved; that the young woman was very credible. And my recommendation to the Senator was to fire him. And I was overruled.”