Patti Solis Doyle, a former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, confirmed on Monday that Clinton personally blocked her from firing a top aide who was accused of sexual harassment.
WATCH:
A New York Times report on Friday revealed that Clinton refused to fire Burns Strider, a faith adviser on her 2008 presidential campaign, after credible accusations of sexual harassment were made against him. Instead of getting rid of Strider, Clinton told him to go to counseling and docked several weeks of his pay, while the woman who accused him of harassment was reassigned to a new job (RELATED: Report: Hillary Clinton Shielded An Accused Sexual Harasser On Her Campaign).
Solis Doyle, who claims Clinton personally shut down her recommendation to fire Strider, spoke publicly about the incident for the first time on CNN.
“A young woman made a complaint to our head of operations about sexual harassment against Burns Strider,” Solis Doyle recalled. “The instance was brought to my attention and, you know, I did my due diligence. I interviewed all the parties involved, I looked at the evidence involved, I looked at the emails he had sent, I looked at other documents, and came to the conclusion that there was sexual harassment involved.”
“My recommendation to the Senator was to fire him, and I was overruled.”
Solis Doyle wouldn’t say specifically why Clinton opted not to fire Strider, but she seemed to hint that there were concerns that firing him would have created bad press for the campaign.
“It wasn’t an easy call,” she said. “We were just a few months away from voting, beginning to start with the caucuses and the primaries. Firing a high-profile person on the campaign certainly would have made news and caused a distraction.”