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Hillary Clinton is breaking her silence on the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

On the heels of blistering reports by The New Yorker and The New York Times with numerous actresses coming forward with reports of harassment and assault, the former Democratic presidential nominee released this statement via her communications director:

Weinstein was fired two days ago by the board of directors of The Weinstein Company after an initialround of reports accused him of harassment. New reports have been published Tuesday against Weinstein containing on-the-record allegations from stars such as Angelina Jolie, GwenythPaltrow, Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino, and several others. Actress Asia Argento claimed Weinstein raped her by forcibly performing oral sex on her, one of three women to allege assault in the New Yorker story.

In a statement provided to the New Yorker, Weinstein denied the claims. Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein, a representative for Weinstein said. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously cant speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual. Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.

Weinstein is a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill, and hosted a series of fundraisers for Clinton and former president Barack Obama over the years, along with contributing to many other Democratic candidates. Former First Lady Michelle Obama once said of Weinstein, I want to start by thanking Harvey Weinstein for organizing this amazing day. Harvey. This is possible because of Harvey. He is a wonderful human being, a good friend and just a powerhouse.

In the wake of the initial reports against Weinstein, numerous elected officials from the Democratic party donated contributions Weinstein made to their campaigns and offices in the past.

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Hillary Clinton breaks silence on Harvey Weinstein allegations

Hillary Clinton's book about the 2016 campaign, "What Happened," won't be out for a few weeks, but Wednesdaymorning a few brief excerpts from the audiobook were played on "Morning Joe." And as usual, a great deal of the focus is on whether Clinton is taking sufficient responsibility for her defeat.

So we need to ask ourselves: Why is it so important to so many people that Clinton perform a ritual of self-abasement?

If you don't recall a chorus of angry calls for Mitt Romney or John McCain or John Kerry or Al Gore to get down on their knees and beg forgiveness for their failures every time they appeared in public after losing their presidential elections, that's because it didn't happen. Only Hillary Clinton is subject to this demand.

And when she takes responsibility, as she has before, her words are carefully scrutinized to see if she's being self-critical enough. When she said in May that she took responsibility for her loss but also pointed out that she would have won had James Comey not made that dramatic email announcement 11 days before the election which is almost certainly true the comments were greeted by a round of scolding from reporters who obviously felt that she was not sufficiently humbled.

Well here's what she says in the book: "Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldn't bear the idea of letting them down but I did. I couldn't get the job done, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life."

Is that abject enough for you?

We're going to be talking about the 2016 election for a long time, because it was one of the most dramatic and consequential in American history, and it brought us Donald Trump. Which means that reporters are going to continue to receive criticism of their coverage, particularly the way they covered Clinton. Some of them react to that criticism by rattling off things Clinton did wrong, as a way of saying that it isn't their fault she lost.

So let's say this really slowly: It's possible to simultaneously acknowledge that 1) Clinton made plenty of mistakes, and 2) there were egregious problems with the way the campaign was covered, problems that contributed to the outcome. Calling attention to the latter doesn't negate the former.

And boy, were there ever problems with the coverage. Consider that The New York Times and the Washington Post struck a deal with Peter Schweitzer, the author of a book called "Clinton Cash," for exclusive access to the material in the book, which alleged corrupt dealings at the Clinton Foundation. Even though Schweitzer's particulars amounted to little more than a lot of nefarious insinuation without evidence of actual wrongdoing, the initial burst of front-page coverage the book received was enough to set off endless cable news chatter about the Clinton Foundation, all of it with the implication that Clinton was guilty of all manner of ethically questionable actions.

To be fair, there were subsequent debunkings of many of the charges. But he narrative of Clinton as hopelessly corrupt was in place, and it formed the basis of Donald Trump's characterization of her as "Crooked Hillary." Over time, mainly via constant chatter on cable news, including from some mainstream journalists, "Clinton Cash" found the mainstream legitimization it needed to set this narrative in motion despite the fact that it was written under the aegis of the Government Accountability Institute, an organization run by a gentleman named Stephen Bannon. You may have heard of him.

That's not even to get into the orgy of coverage of Clinton's emails, which reporters treated as though it were the most important issue that the American public would confront in the entire 21st century. As multiple subsequent analyses have found, the email story was far and away the most prominent topic of news coverage during the campaign, a focus that from the vantage point of today seems somewhere between ridiculous and insane. The point is, it's not exactly crazy for Clinton to have a complaint or two about the way she was covered, nor is it crazy for her to mention that the Russian government was apparently working to support her opponent, something unprecedented in American history.

Did she make mistakes? Of course she did. She was too complacent about states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that Democrats hadn't lost in many presidential campaigns. Her criticisms of Trump were too focused on what a repugnant human being he is and not enough on his agenda to help the wealthy and powerful. She didn't do enough to turn out black and Hispanic voters. You could make a long list.

But every candidate, even those who win, makes lots of mistakes. There are no perfect campaigns. If a hundred thousand votes spread across a few states had gone a different way, we would be talking about what a genius she was and how ludicrous the Trump campaign strategy was.

So again, why were other presidential losers were never told to voluntarily submit themselves to a ritual humiliation? I can't prove to you empirically that sexism is the reason that demand is only made of Clinton, but previous candidates didn't find their occasional post-election comments greeted with headlines like "Dear Hillary Clinton, please stop talking about 2016" or "Can Hillary Clinton please go quietly into the night," or "Hillary Clinton shouldn't be writing a book - she should be drafting a long apology to America" (that last op-ed began with the line, "Hey, Hillary Clinton, shut the f- up and go away already"). Only Clinton is supposed to beg for forgiveness, absolve everyone else of any sins they committed in 2016, and whip herself until we're good and satisfied that she has been punished enough.

Like everyone else, I haven't read "What Happened." Maybe it's a candid and insightful look behind the scenes of an extraordinary campaign. Or maybe it's the kind of shallow and self-serving book most politicians write. But the last thing we should care about is whether Clinton apologizes sufficiently for losing.

Washington Post

Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.

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Has Hillary Clinton apologized sufficiently for losing? - Chicago Tribune

Democrats, still seething and licking their wounds after losing the presidential election to Republican Donald Trump, want their former nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be either useful or fade out of the limelight, a counselor to the president said Thursday.

While appearing on Fox & Friends,Kellyanne Conway said Democrats were whispering that Clinton should not be publishing a book about the race.

Look at the crackup of the left, said Conway, who was a top Trump aide during the campaign. Youve got Hillary Clinton, who Democrats are whispering all over this town they wish that this book didnt happenthat she would just either make herself useful or fade out of the limelight. Where is her bipartisan effort to try to help with infrastructure, meaningful tax reform or the opioid crisis that I work on in the building behind me every single day? We havent heard from her.

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Clinton is preparing to releaseWhat Happened, her book about last years brutal election.The book is set to appear on shelves in September, and on Wednesday the former secretary of state released an audio excerpt to MSNBC detailing her thoughts during her second debate with candidate Trump.

In the recording, Clinton described how she could feel Trump breathing down her neck while standing behind her during the town-hall-style debateand said her skin crawled. She also said she contemplated telling Trump, Back up, you creep.

Clinton explained her thought process at the timeand the decision not to call out Trump. The debate came after Trump had been accused of sexual assault by several women and after the release of the Access Hollywoodtape, during which Trump said his celebrity allowed him to grab women's genitals.

"Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space?" Clinton said she asked herself. "Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly, 'Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can't intimidate me, so back up.'"

According to Conway, the books rollout will only further split what some have called a fractured Democratic Party that is struggling after Clintons stunning loss.

She failed to make history, and she succeeds at making excuses, Conway said. And that is emblematic of the Democratic Party right now that is so bereft of ideas and issues that they have to then play armchair psychiatrist. Were not going to let it happen. Its outrageous.

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Democrats Want Hillary Clinton to Go Away, Kellyanne Conway Says - Newsweek

She hasnt returned to the Clinton Foundation in a formal capacity. But nine months after an election that left the charity smaller in size, scope, and funding, Hillary Clinton is stepping into a new supporting role to raise money on behalf of the organization.

The fundraising plans, confirmed by foundation spokesperson Craig Minassian, bring the former candidate back into a nonprofit still adjusting to new and uncertain terrain, with Bill Clinton, 71, serving in a new role as chair, and Chelsea Clinton, 37, as vice chair.

The father and daughter, along with senior staff, spent much of last spring initiating a massive effort to scale down the 15-year-old global operation: Where funding might present a conflict of interest, those programs were spun off, shuttered, or absorbed by other nonprofits. The idea, to prepare for a possible move to Washington, led to a different reality: to retrenchment; to big, open questions about the direction of the work; and to frequent talk about the future. I want to send a clear signal that were serious about continuing our work, the former president told the Miami Herald this spring.

Funding has been a particular focus after revenue declined in 2016. In part, that was natural: Bill and Chelsea Clinton spent the year pulled between the trail and fundraising for the campaign, while the foundation became the target of attack ads, and self-imposed donor limits meant it could not solicit foreign grants. (A year later, the foundation is now applying for such grants again.) But more broadly, financial longevity at the foundation is also a source of discussion among longtime donors now that the Clintons have left electoral politics. Another lasting challenge will be the end of the annual Clinton Global Initiative event, a gathering that drew celebrities, politicians, foreign leaders, and corporate executives, and served as the foundations biggest platform.

Hillary Clintons renewed fundraising presence came without much notice earlier this month: At the bottom of an email from the Clinton Foundation, above a bright orange DONATE button, her name appeared in the signature line for the first time since she stepped down from the foundation to launch her campaign in the spring of 2015.

Your support means so much to Bill (and to me), she wrote, stressing what she cast as the promise of the future in spite of damage from an election of unprecedented, ugly, and misleading or outright false attacks ... which incredibly still continue today.

Whether Hillary Clinton, 69, will return to an official role at the foundation, where she served on the board after leaving the State Department in 2013, remains uncertain.

We are not there yet even remotely now, spokesperson Nick Merrill told the New York Times in February. Six months later, he and Minassian only confirmed that while Clinton holds no official role, she will help with fundraising, from appearances at foundation events to digital campaigns. (Her email this month raised more than any individual foundation fundraising email in the last five years, according to Minassian.)

In her two years at the foundation, she launched an early childhood development program, and partnered with Chelsea Clinton on a campaign to protect elephants (CGI Elephant Action Network) and a data study on women and girls (No Ceilings). After the election, Hillary Clinton also cofounded a political group, Onward Together, to fund and support a coalition of grassroots activist-led organizations on the left.

Secretary Clinton strongly believes in the foundation, and we're grateful that she will continue to support its critical, life-changing work, including fundraising on the foundations behalf, Minassian said in a statement

The foundation, formed in 1997 as a fundraising vehicle for the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, relaunched in 2001 as the basis for Bill Clinton's sprawling enterprise of programs across the world, powered by partnerships between businesses, governments, and nonprofits. The model made the Arkansas Democrat a pioneer in philanthropic circles for his work with public-private partnerships. The money and power around that model, meanwhile, made his work a long-running source of scrutiny, raising questions about influence, transparency, and the interests of foreign and corporate donors.

On the other side of 2016, officials are still looking at more basic questions, like what kinds of program to start, what kinds to expand, and to what scale.

Because of the changes made last year, much of the foundations work is now domestic-based, such as one three-year program, now growing, to provide schools with drugs to counter opioid overdoses. The flagship Clinton Global Initiative event survives in miniature, with smaller gatherings and forums (most recent: Caribbean leaders on local womens health care). The yearly "commitments" that have been made at CGI also continue and some continue to grow, along with an offshoot for college students, the Clinton Global Initiative University.

Without the annual event, however, there is already a replacement on the calendar: Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, will host CEOs and government leaders, including Bill Clinton, at the first Bloomberg Global Business Forum held around the same time that the CGI used to convene in the Sheraton Times Square.

The scale-down, Bill Clinton told staffers last year, is like a root canal for me.

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Hillary Clinton Will Raise Money For A Clinton Foundation Still In Transition - BuzzFeed News

Hillary Clinton slammed Donald Trump's proposed ban on allowing transgenders to serve in the military with a one-word statement.

VoteVets.org, a political organization dedicated to advocating for military families and education, tweeted a vehement opposition to the proposal on Thursday. " There's NO reason for a transgender ban. Military isn't asking for it. Americans don't want it. This is about Trump embrace of hate. Period," the organization wrote on Twitter, linking to a poll it conducted that showed voters largely rejected the policy.

"Correct," Clinton wrote in response.

Although VoteVets describes itself on its website as a non-partisan organization, its Twitter biography notes that Donald Trump has blocked the group on the platform.

The pair of tweets come after the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House will soon issue guidance to the Pentagon on implementing a transgender military ban. Trump announced he would enact such a ban on Twitter last month, reversing a policy decision made under the Obama administration.

Clinton's tweet Thursday appears to be her only social media post about the ban since Trump announced it.

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Hillary Clinton Slams Donald Trump's Transgender Military Ban - TIME