Hillary Clinton Facts

The first lady who fights for women’s rights

Clinton later recalled that as first lady she sought to serve her country “without losing her own face.”

Bill Clinton wanted Hillary to take part in his administration. He put her in charge of health care reform, but she failed.

However, during her speech in Beijing, Hillary Clinton raised a topic that later became a key one for her – it was about women’s rights.

“Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights,” she said at the time.

Scandals. Whitewater and Lewinsky

During Bill Clinton’s first term as president, the couple continued to be accused of real estate fraud in the 1970s.

An independent investigation led by Robert Fiske found no evidence for these allegations, but his successor Kenneth Starr continued the investigation. In 1996, Hillary was forced to appear in court – for the first time in history, the wife of a president testified before a grand jury.

Starr’s investigation did not reveal Clinton’s illegal actions, but revealed the secret of her husband, which shocked not only Hillary herself, but the whole world.

The revelation of Bill Clinton’s extramarital affair with intern Monica Lewinsky put both his presidency and his marriage to Hillary in jeopardy.

First Lady Senator

While her husband faced the threat of impeachment, Hillary continued to look to the future.

When the New York senator resigned, Hillary’s name immediately appeared among the contenders for the office. Clinton was helped to make this difficult decision by a documentary about women in sports.

At the presentation, a young athlete whispered in her ear, “Dare to fight.” And Hillary made up her mind – and became the only first lady elected to public office.

Not the President, but the Secretary of State

After Clinton was easily re-elected as a senator in November 2006, the White House again attracted her attention.

She began the fight for the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party, but lost it to the young charismatic Senator Barack Obama.

Previous scandals continued to tarnish her reputation, and according to polls at the time, 61% of voters thought Clinton was unreliable. Even though victory seemed close, Hillary was forced to admit defeat in her bid to become the first female president.

However, her political career did not stop there – Barack Obama, who became president, offered Clinton the post of Secretary of State.

In this position, she visited 112 countries, and the experience of the first lady was useful to her in establishing international relations.

Email Scandal

However, Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state was not a rosy one.

In 2012, four Americans were killed at a consulate in Libya, among them the US ambassador to that country, Chris Stevens. Republicans and conservative media blamed the tragedy on the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton in particular.

In February 2013, Clinton resigned, but the investigation continued. And although the investigators did not find Clinton’s illegal actions in Libya, she found herself at the epicenter of another scandal.

The investigation found that during her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used personal mail servers for official correspondence.

In 2016, the FBI said that Clinton would not be formally charged, but her political opponents continue to press for her arrest.

Finish line

In 2015, Hillary again announced her intentions to settle in the White House.

At first, she was the favorite among Democratic candidates. However, Senator Bernie Sanders was subsequently able to garner significant support, including among the youth, and was a serious competitor to Clinton until the very end, when she did manage to become the official Democratic presidential candidate.

Her Republican rival was Donald Trump, and both of them had to wage a difficult campaign to win the support of as many voters as possible.

On November 8, millions of US citizens will vote for the new president, and it depends on their choice whether Hillary Clinton will become the first woman in this responsible post.