Former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is receiving some backlash and public scrutiny for allegedly aiding one of her political advisers in the past, even after being accused of sexual harassment by one of his former co-workers. The name of the alleged sexual abuser is Burns Strider, who served Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.
As reported by The New York Times, Clinton is allegedly responsible for protecting Strider amid sexual harassment charges that were issued against him sometime in 2008. Instead of dismissing Strider from his post, as recommended by two of her campaign advisers who looked into the accusations, Clinton opted to order him to attend counseling, his pay waived for the duration of his absence.
The young woman who accused Strider was subsequently transferred to another team after alleging that the latter had been making inappropriate advances toward her and sending her inappropriate emails, among other things.
Strider remained under Clinton's wing, serving as her campaign faith adviser.
On Clinton's official Twitter page, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state posted that she recognizes the difficult predicament that the accuser was faced with before coming out with her story. Furthermore, Clinton stated that she was pleased that the woman's accusations were "taken seriously." Clinton went on to say in her following tweets that she personally contacted the accuser to praise her for her bravery.
Many netizens did not take Clinton's statements well, and the 70-year-old political figure received backlash for not being accountable for having a sex offender in her camp. Many slammed Clinton for not apologizing and owning up to her decision to keep Strider on board during her campaign.
In a lengthy statement on Facebook, Clinton reflected on the decisions that she had made with regard to the sexual allegations against Strider. She said, "We can't go back, but we can certainly look back, informed by the present. We can acknowledge that even those of us who have spent much of our life thinking about gender issues and who have firsthand experiences of navigating a male-dominated industry or career may not always get it right."
