Hillary Clinton has opened up on her decision to let a senior campaign adviser keep his job after a female employee accused him of sexual harassment in 2007.

The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate wrote on Facebook: “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 behaviour. The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t.”

Clinton said senior campaign staff and legal counsel confirmed that the behaviour by faith-based adviser Burns Strider had occurred after the woman came forward.

Her campaign manager recommended that Strider should be removed, but Clinton said she instead demoted him, docked his pay, set up counselling, separated him from the victim and warned that he would lose his job if he did it again.

The New York Times reported that Strider declined to attend the counselling sessions. He told BuzzFeed News that he did not consider his behaviour “excessive”.

Clinton said there were no further complaints against Strider during the rest of the campaign, but admitted she is troubled that he was sacked from a job leading an independent political action committee supporting Clinton over inappropriate behaviour several years later.

She said the recurrence of the alleged behaviour “troubles me greatly”.