The Democratic candidate was speaking to top party donors in a phone call, which was leaked to the media.

Protests are continuing against the victory of her rival, Donald Trump.

In New York, about 2,000 marchers headed for the skyscraper where the president-elect lives, shouting “not my president”.

Anti-Trump activists have held daily protests in US cities since his election victory was confirmed on Wednesday.

Mr Trump seems to be rowing back on some of his campaign pledges. Having promised to scrap President Barack Obama’s healthcare law dubbed “Obamacare”, he now says he is open to leaving intact key parts of the act.

Asked by the Wall Street Journal whether he would implement a promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, he listed healthcare, jobs, border control and tax reform as greater priorities.

The Republican is due to be sworn in on 20 January, taking over from Mr Obama, who will have completed two terms in office.

‘We dropped’
Mrs Clinton, who served as Mr Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has been keeping a low profile since conceding victory.

On 28 October, Mr Comey informed Congress that the FBI was examining newly discovered emails sent or received by Mrs Clinton, thus reviving an investigation which had been completed in July.

Then, on 6 November, two days before the election, Mr Comey announced in a second letter that he was standing by his original assessment – that Mrs Clinton should not face criminal charges.

“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs Clinton told the donors on a farewell conference call on Saturday.

“But our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum. We dropped, and we had to keep really pushing ahead to regain our advantage.”

According to US media, she added that Mr Comey’s later recommendation that she should face no charges had energised Mr Trump’s supporters.

Her campaign team said that despite Mrs Clinton being cleared of criminal behaviour, the move only revived Mr Trump’s claim that the Democratic candidate was being protected by a rigged system.

Despair and anger
The New York marchers rallied in Union Square Park for the march to Trump Tower, from which the next president has been planning the transition to his inauguration.

One organiser of the New York protest, Kenneth Shelton, told the BBC that it was not an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of Tuesday’s election. “We lost,” he admitted.

Placards at the demonstration express despair and anger, the BBC’s Paul Adams says.

One read “Trump: An American Tragedy” while the message on another read “Now We’re Your Nightmare”.

“We must unite despite our differences to stop HATE from ruling the land,” organisers of the New York protest wrote on Facebook. Demonstrations in the city earlier this week drew thousands of people.
Similar demonstrations were also held in Los Angeles and Chicago on Saturday.

On Friday demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, turned violent and one person was shot but most rallies have passed off peacefully.

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Source: BBC

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Mrs Clinton – who has seen her national opinion poll lead shrink in recent days – targeted her Republican rival’s temperament and attitude to women.

Mr Trump said she would be followed into the White House by criminal investigations.

He has gained ground on Mrs Clinton in some swing states, polls suggest.

Thursday’s campaigning included a rare appearance by Mr Trump’s wife Melania.

In her first speech since July’s Republican convention, the former model spoke about being an immigrant and a mother and said her husband would “make America fair”.

She also vowed, in a speech in the Philadelphia suburbs, to lead a campaign against cyber-bullying if she becomes first lady, and to combat a culture that has “gotten too mean and too rough”.

She made no reference to her husband’s record of name-calling on social media.

Mr Trump has gained ground on Mrs Clinton in a number of swing states, including Florida and North Carolina, according to polls. Some national tracker polls are now suggesting the two candidates are neck-and-neck.

The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project estimates Mrs Clinton’s odds of winning the necessary 270 Electoral College votes on Tuesday at about 90%, down from 95% last week.

The momentum appears to be with Mr Trump, who has joked about having to stay on message, as the final weekend of campaigning approaches.

He has capitalised on a new FBI investigation into a Clinton aide’s emails.

“Here we go again with the Clintons – you remember the impeachment and the problems,” Mr Trump said at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, his fourth appearance in the state.

“That’s not what we need in our country, folks. We need someone who is ready to go to work.”

Later, at a night-time rally in North Carolina, he delivered a speech on defence in which he said he could not imagine Mrs Clinton as commander-in-chief.

Mrs Clinton continued to focus on Mr Trump’s character, telling a rally in North Carolina: “He has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.

“This has never happened to a nominee of a major party.”

She added: “If Donald Trump were to win this election we would have a commander-in-chief who is completely out of his depth and whose ideas are incredibly dangerous.”

President Barack Obama has been working almost as hard as Mrs Clinton, as he attempts to rally support among young voters and African Americans.

Analysis of early voting returns suggests black voters may not be turning out in the kinds of numbers they did for Obama in 2012.

Alluding to Mr Trump’s past as a reality TV show host, Mr Obama told students at Florida International University in Miami: “This isn’t a joke. This isn’t Survivor. This isn’t The Bachelorette. This counts.”

Mrs Clinton also got a boost from her one-time rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders. He appeared alongside her at a rally in North Carolina on Thursday evening, praising her commitment to increasing the minimum wage and tackling inequality.

Music star Pharrell Williams was also at the event, hailing Mrs Clinton’s record on women’s rights.

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Mrs Clinton said Mr Trump had a 30-year history of “demeaning, degrading, insulting and assaulting” women.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has branded Mrs Clinton “corrupt” and said she would “destroy American healthcare forever”.

He told early Clinton voters with “buyer’s remorse” they could change their vote in four states.

The clashes came as the fractious contest entered its final week, with the opinion polls appearing to show the race getting tighter.

Speaking in Florida – and appearing on stage with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who has previously claimed Mr Trump once called her “Miss Piggy” after she put on weight – Mrs Clinton said she had “learned way back in elementary school that it’s not OK to insult people”.

For her part, Ms Machado called Mr Trump “cruel” and said she had spent years “sick, fighting back eating disorders” as a result of the Republican nominee’s comments.

Echoing Mrs Clinton’s comments at a rally in Ohio, President Barack Obama said the Republican candidate had spent a “lifetime calling women pigs and dogs and slobs”.

The focus on Mr Trump’s treatment of women coincided with a new TV advert put out by the Democrats which showed archive footage of Mr Trump making remarks such as: “Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing.”

The Republican nominee has faced a string of sexual harassment allegations in the last month, after a 2005 video tape that saw him making obscene remarks about women emerged.

He has denied any wrongdoing and threatened to sue those involved after the election.

Donald Trump focused his attacks on the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, which he believes is becoming increasingly unpopular with low income families he needs to vote for him, amid reports of higher premiums and less choice.

Appearing on stage with his running mate Mike Pence and Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Mr Trump called Obamacare “a catastrophe” and said he would immediately convene a special session of Congress to repeal and replace it if he becomes president.

He also urged early voters who had “made a mistake” by voting for Mrs Clinton to change their ballots before Thursday’s deadline.

Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania allow early vote switches but the practice is extremely rare, according to the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College.

Both sides also continued to spar over the recent revelation that FBI investigators are again probing Mrs Clinton’s email practices on Tuesday.

The revelation has put Democrats on the defensive and hurt Mrs Clinton’s plans to promote a positive message over the campaign’s final week.

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Source: BBC

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Harry Reid accused FBI director James Comey of violating an act which bars officials from influencing an election.

News of the FBI inquiry comes less than two weeks before the US election.

The bureau has meanwhile obtained a warrant to search a cache of emails belonging to a top Clinton aide.

Emails from Huma Abedin are believed to have been found on the laptop of her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner.

There are reportedly 650,000 emails to search through, making it unlikely investigators can give a verdict on them before election day.

The FBI believes the emails might be “pertinent” to its previous inquiry into Mrs Clinton’s use of a private server when she was secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The case was closed in July without any charges being brought against Mrs Clinton.

Mr Weiner is subject to a separate investigation on suspicion of sending sexually explicit messages to an underage girl.

‘Partisan actions’

In a letter, Mr Reid accused Mr Comey of practising double standards with the intention of helping one political party over another.

He said Mr Comey may have violated the Hatch Act, which bars officials from using their position to influence an election.

“Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” he said.

Mr Reid also accused Mr Comey of withholding “explosive information about close ties between [Republican candidate] Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government”.

“The public has a right to know about this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public,” Mr Reid said.

Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, revealed on Sunday he had filed a complaint against the FBI with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations.

Writing in the New York Times he said: “I never thought that the FBI could be dragged into a political circus surrounding one of its investigations. Until this week.”

Race gets closer

With the election due on 8 November, opinion polls showed Mrs Clinton’s lead against Mr Trump tightening even before the email controversy surfaced again.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll published on Sunday put Mrs Clinton just one percentage point ahead.

Mrs Clinton has described Mr Comey’s actions as “unprecedented” and “deeply troubling”.

But Mr Trump has praised the FBI’s decision, accusing the Department of Justice of protecting Mrs Clinton in a “rigged system”.

“The Department of Justice is trying their hardest to protect the criminal activity of Hillary Clinton,” Mr Trump told a rally in Nevada.

It emerged on Sunday that the Department of Justice had urged the FBI not to inform Congress of the new inquiry so close to the election.

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Americans “deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” she said.

The FBI says it has fresh emails which may be “pertinent” to a previous inquiry into her use of a private server when she was secretary of state.

Republican presidential rival Donald Trump said the move was the “biggest political scandal since Watergate”.
The FBI’s announcement was made on Friday, just 11 days before the election.

The latest emails were discovered as part of a separate investigation into the estranged husband of top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.

Devices belonging to her and Anthony Weiner, a former high-flying congressman, were seized in an investigation into whether he sent sexually explicit emails to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.

The discovery of the new emails was revealed by FBI director James Comey in a letter to Congress on Friday.
Mr Comey said while he did not yet know the significance of the findings, the FBI would investigate if any of the emails contained classified information.

Democrat presidential candidate Mrs Clinton said she was “confident” the investigation into the emails would not change the FBI’s original finding in July.

The FBI decided she should not be prosecuted for her use of a private email server as secretary of state – a position she held between 2009 and 2013.

“It’s imperative that the bureau explain this issue in question, whatever it is, without any delay,” she told reporters on the campaign trail in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday.

A senior media adviser on her campaign, James Rubin, told the BBC on Saturday that “when this is all over, this is going to be a gigantic tempest in a teapot”.

He also suggested the FBI decided to send the letter now to prevent it being criticised by the Republicans after the election.
For his part, Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters at a rally in Iowa: “It’s everybody’s hope that justice at last can be delivered.”
“The FBI would never have reopened this case at this time unless it were a most egregious criminal offence.”

He compared the latest development to that of the 1970s Watergate scandal that engulfed then-Republican President Richard Nixon.

The FBI has already established the Democratic candidate had classified information on a private email server.

In July, Mr Comey said Mrs Clinton’s handling of sensitive material during her tenure as secretary of state was “extremely careless”, but cleared her of any criminal wrongdoing.

The revelation that she handled sensitive information while breaking federal rules by running her own email server out of her upstate New York home has dogged her campaign since last year.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta criticised the FBI’s “extraordinary” timing.

Opinion polls suggest Mrs Clinton is four points ahead of Mr Trump, according to a Real Clear Politics average.

Paul Ryan, the highest-ranked elected Republican, called the FBI decision “long overdue”.

The House of Representatives Speaker renewed his call for the Director of National Intelligence to halt classified briefings for the Democratic candidate.

“She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information,” he said.

The former secretary of state’s private email server was first revealed in March 2015 by the New York Times.

She did not immediately express regret, and said the main reason for her “[email protected]” address was “convenience”.

Soon after that she apologised in an interview with ABC News, and has since said sorry to voters a number of times.

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The Democratic presidential candidate called on the FBI director to explain the new inquiry to the American people.

James Comey earlier said the FBI was looking into newly found messages.

The latest emails came to light during a separate inquiry into top Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner.

Devices belonging to Ms Abedin and Mr Weiner were seized in an investigation into whether he sent sexually explicit emails to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.

“The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” said Mrs Clinton.

“It’s imperative that the bureau explain this issue in question, whatever it is, without any delay.”

She highlighted that Mr Comey had said he did not know the significance of the new emails, adding: “I’m confident (that) whatever they are will not change the conclusion reached in July.”

Mrs Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump, however, described the FBI investigation as “the biggest political scandal since Watergate”, referring to the 1970s scandal that engulfed Republican President Richard Nixon.
“It’s everybody’s hope that justice at last can be delivered,” he told supporters at a rally in Iowa.

“The FBI would never have reopened this case at this time unless it were a most egregious criminal offence.”
Mr Comey said the FBI would investigate if the newly discovered emails contain classified information.

The FBI chief said in a letter to Congress that investigators had discovered the emails “in connection with an unrelated case… that appear to be pertinent to the investigation”.

He said he “cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work”.

It could be nothing. It could be everything. And it almost certainly won’t be resolved before Americans head to the polls in just under two weeks.

The letter from Mr Comey to Congress is frustratingly vague. There’s no information, for instance, or how many emails are in question. That will only fuel the rampant speculation already breaking out, with leaks from “government sources” in the coming days sure to fan the flames.

Mrs Clinton’s critics will go on the attack, using the latest news to support their claims that the former secretary of state engaged in malfeasance. Her supporters will spend the next few days in a defensive crouch, trying to assess how bad the damage could be.

What’s certain, however, is that whether this turns out to be a big deal or not, it places the spotlight on all the wrong places for the Clinton campaign. It all but guarantees that even if she wins White House, the early days of her presidency will be dogged by this long-running political imbroglio.

The FBI has already established the Democratic candidate had classified information on a private email server.

In July, Mr Comey said Mrs Clinton’s handling of sensitive material during her 2009-13 tenure as secretary of state was “extremely careless”, but cleared her of any criminal wrongdoing.

The revelation that she handled sensitive information while breaking federal rules by running her own email server out of her upstate New York home has dogged her campaign since last year.

What a difference a plane journey makes. When we left Westchester, New York, on Hillary Clinton’s campaign plane, spirits were high amongst her staff.

Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, came to the back of the plane and told reporters that early voting was going in their favour and that Mrs Clinton would even campaign in Republican-leaning Arizona next week.

But Mr Mook added that they weren’t taking anything for granted. He said: “Hillary is superstitious.”

When we landed and wifi internet was restored, the Clinton team first learned the news of a reopened FBI investigation.

She was right to be superstitious.
As we got off the plane, one of her advisers told us: “We are just learning about this at the same time as you are.”
Mrs Clinton stayed on for far longer than usual. Her team were digesting the news and working out how to respond.

When she did walk off the plane, she smiled and ignored shouted questions from the media on the tarmac about the long-running email saga.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta criticised the FBI’s “extraordinary” timing.

The revelation comes just 11 days before Americans go to the polls in the presidential election.

Mrs Clinton is five points ahead of Mr Trump, according to a Real Clear Politics average.

Paul Ryan, the highest-ranked elected Republican, called the FBI decision “long overdue”.

The House of Representatives Speaker renewed his call for the Director of National Intelligence to halt classified briefings for the Democratic candidate.

“She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information,” he said.

The former secretary of state’s private email server was first revealed in March 2015 by the New York Times.

She did not immediately express regret, and said the main reason for her “[email protected]” address was “convenience”.

Soon after that she apologised in an interview with ABC News, and has since said sorry to voters a number of times.

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“I debated him for four and a half hours,” she said, recalling their acrimonious exchanges. “I don’t even think about responding to him anymore.”

She was speaking to reporters aboard her campaign plane.

Mr Trump used a rally in Gettysburg to promise curbs on lobbying and new trade and climate change negotiations.

With just 16 days until the election, much of the recent focus has been on controversies linked to his campaign.

On Saturday, he again promised to sue every woman who had accused him of sexual assault or inappropriate behaviour as soon as his presidential campaign was over.

While the tycoon lags behind Mrs Clinton in opinion polls, he recently narrowed the gap to about four percentage points.

Clinton urges unity

Asked about Mr Trump’s threat to sue his accusers, Mrs Clinton said her focus had turned to helping elect other Democrats on 8 November, when Congressional seats are also being contested

“He can say whatever he wants. He can run his campaign however he wants to,” she said.

“I’m going to let the American people decide between what he offers and what we offer.”

If Arizona swings: analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News

The polls may be wrong in Arizona but if they are correct, it may be the start of a Democratic trend that doesn’t just put the state in play in a Clinton 2016 rout scenario, it makes Arizona a legitimate swing state in coming elections.

“The demographics in the state are continuing to change,” says Arizona State University political science professor Richard Herrera. “If there is another increase in Latino voters, which there almost certainly will be, followed with an increase in party registrants, this could become a real battleground in future elections.”

For Democrats, that’s a dream scenario, giving them new and plentiful paths to electoral success.

For Republicans, it could mean the start of a long-term political nightmare.

Speaking on stage in Pittsburgh, Mrs Clinton called for Americans to unite.

“I understand that they need a president who cares about them, will listen to them and I want to be their president,” she said.

Before his speech in Gettysburg, Mr Trump said the media were fabricating stories to make him “look as bad and dangerous as possible”.

Eleven women have come forward to accuse him of inappropriate behaviour, in the weeks since a video emerged of him boasting of groping women and kissing them.

“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Mr Trump told the audience.

What happens next?

• The two candidates will spend the remaining 16 days before the election criss-crossing the US in their bid to persuade undecided voters. Expect to see lots of appearances in battleground states such as Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania
• Voters will go to the polls on Tuesday 8 November to decide who becomes the 45th president of the US
• The new president will be inaugurated on 20 January 2017

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He also suggested the presidential race was looking like a “rigged election”.

The comments came in the wake of the publication of a recording in which he made obscene remarks, which sparked a string of sexual assault claims.

Polls suggest Mr Trump is losing ground in some of the key battleground states.

Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, Mr Trump said Mrs Clinton had been “all pumped up” at the beginning of the last debate but could “barely reach her car” at the end.
“We should take a drugs test,” he said.

He did not provide any evidence to back up his claim.

Donald Trump’s personal attacks on Hillary Clinton are on the increase.

He’s nicknamed her Crooked Hillary, said he would put her in prison if he was elected president, described her as not having the stamina for the job and now he has accused her of taking some kind of drug.

His rally speeches have become increasingly agitated and he has stepped up his rhetoric aimed at casting doubt on the fairness of this election, saying it is being rigged by a corrupt media pushing false allegations and outright lies.

He may be trailing in the polls but he is managing to attract thousands of people to his rallies and raise funds.

Meanwhile the Clinton campaign has hit back against Mr Trump’s contention that women accusing him of sexual assault are part of a scheme to help elect Mrs Clinton president.
Voting was to be encouraged and not “dismissed or undermined because a candidate is afraid he’s going to lose”, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said.

Mr Mook said he expected a record turnout because voters could see through what he described as Mr Trump’s “shameful attempts to undermine an election weeks before it happens”.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said he was “fully confident” that the November election would be carried out “with integrity”, according to his spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

Mr Ryan, the most senior elected US Republican official, has said he will not defend Donald Trump in the wake of the recording of the nominee’s obscene comments.

However, Mr Ryan has stopped short of ending his endorsement of the Republican candidate.

The latest person to come forward is 63-year-old Cathy Heller, who told the Guardian newspaper that Mr Trump grabbed her and “went for the lips” during their first and only meeting 20 years ago, during a Mother’s Day event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

A spokesman for Mr Trump rejected the claim.

Mr Trump has denied attacking any of the women who have made allegations against him, saying the claims are part of a plot to damage his campaign.

The final televised debate takes place on Wednesday.

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Mr Podesta also suggested Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign was given advance notice of the breach.

His remarks come after WikiLeaks published a trove of his hacked emails.

The top adviser to Mrs Clinton said the enquiry was part of a wider probe into hacks on the Democratic Party by groups with Russian ties.

“I’ve been involved in politics for nearly five decades,” Mr Podesta told reporters aboard the Clinton campaign plane.

“This definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies, who seem to be doing everything they can on behalf of our opponent.”

The longtime aide to Mrs Clinton pointed to a tweet by Mr Trump’s adviser Roger Stone in August that said Mr Podesta’s “time in the barrel” was coming.

However, the tweet was posted shortly after WikiLeaks released thousands of hacked emails from other Democratic officials.

Mr Podesta also claimed Mr Stone has been in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but acknowledged evidence was “circumstantial”.

Mr Stone told the AP news agency that Mr Podesta’s claims were “categorically false” while WikiLeaks tweeted that it “has had no contact with Roger Stone”.

Mr Podesta also speculated that the timing of the first WikiLeaks release on Friday was intended to distract from the explosive 2005 footage showing Mr Trump making obscene comments about groping women.

The Clinton campaign has not verified the authenticity of the leaked emails, adding that they could have been altered.

“The pattern is they hack, they leak truthful things, and then they build up to leaking documents that are either doctored or wholly fabricated,” said Mrs Clinton’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri.

Analysis: Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter

These emails have given Americans a candid look at the inner chaos, dysfunction and general awkwardness of a major presidential campaign.

Anyone familiar with ungainly corporate bureaucracies – the best way to describe what modern multi-million-dollar political endeavours have become – should instantly recognise the picture.

Mrs Clinton’s leadership team obsesses about messaging, deals with interpersonal disputes, and frets and freezes over bad news and worst-case scenarios. They also reveal the campaign’s at-times-cozy relationship with members of the US media (some of whom, like Donna Brazile, were former, and future, party operatives).

Mr Podesta has condemned the hack – the virtual equivalent of someone riffling through his desk drawers – as the work of a Russian government intent on helping the Trump campaign. So far, at least, the purloined messages contain no smoking guns.

They should, however, dispel Americans of any notion of the inherent nobility of political campaigns. Modern politics is less Aaron Sorkin and his high-minded West Wing television series than it is a theatre-of-the-absurd episode of Veep.

The latest batch of emails offer a glimpse into Mrs Clinton’s political network, suggesting that Donna Brazile, Democratic National Committee interim chairman, had given the nominee advance notice of a question she would be asked at a CNN town hall event.

Ms Brazile denied any impropriety on Tuesday.

US relations with Russia have taken a central role in the presidential election.

Last week, US intelligence officials said the Russian government was behind a series of hacks aiming to influence the presidential election.

Mrs Clinton has also questioned Mr Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, his connection to Russian businessmen and his criticism of the Nato alliance.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told CNN the hacking allegations were flattering but ridiculous.

When asked about Trump’s lewd comments about women, he said there were “pussies” on both sides.

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The Republican nominee denied ever sexually assaulting women, but turned his fire on ex-President Bill Clinton in a bitter US presidential debate.

“There’s never been anybody in the history of politics that has been so abusive to women,” he said.

Hillary Clinton refused to address his comments about her husband.

Mr Trump’s attack on the Clintons came after moderator Anderson Cooper asked him about a 2005 video recording released on Friday that revealed Mr Trump bragging about groping women.

But when pressed on whether he had engaged in sexual misconduct with any women, he denied doing so and instead focused on Mr Clinton’s previous indiscretions.

No criminal charges have been brought against Mr Clinton in any allegations of sexual assault.

Mrs Clinton said the explosive video, which has sparked an exodus of Republicans denying support to their presidential nominee, showed who Mr Trump really was.

“With prior Republican nominees, I disagreed with them,” she added, “but I never questioned their fitness to serve.

“I think it’s clear to anyone who heard [the video] that it represents exactly who he is.”

When the two took to the stage in St Louis for their second of three debates, they did not shake hands, striking a bitter tone that would continue throughout.

Mr Trump said if he won, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs Clinton and she would be in prison over her private email arrangements.

“Everything he just said is absolutely false but I’m not surprised,” she responded. “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.”

“Because you’d be in jail,” he interrupted.
Mr Trump also said his Democratic rival “has tremendous hate in her heart” while criticising her for referring to his supporters as “deplorables”.

Mrs Clinton said she apologised for the comment, adding: “My argument is not with his supporters, it’s with him, about the hateful and divisive campaign he has run.”

The two also sparred on the conflict in Syria, Russian aggression, Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns and his plan for the “extreme vetting” of immigrants arriving from countries with links to terrorism.

The evening concluded when an audience member asked the candidates to say one positive thing about each other.

Mrs Clinton said his children were a great reflection of him while Mr Trump called his opponent “a fighter” who never gives up.

An hour before the debate began, Mr Trump appeared at a press conference with women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.

He joined three women who allege the former president sexually assaulted them and called the women “very courageous”.

The Republican was under immense pressure after making obscene comments about women in the video.

At least 33 senior Republicans – including senators, members of Congress, and state governors – have withdrawn their support since the video surfaced on Friday.

Donald Trump entered this debate threatening to unload every bit of malicious allegations and rumours on Hillary Clinton. And he did.

Accusations of Bill Clinton’s sexual impropriety? Check. Her work as a public defender representing a rapist? Yup. He even tied it up in a bow by remarking that his Democratic opponent should be in jail.

Mrs Clinton said she would take the high road, but she did get in her shots as well, saying the illicit video of Mr Trump’s lewd comments showed who he really is.

And then, after that nuclear exchange, the debate chugged along – with Mr Trump often gaining the upper hand. If his weakness is policy knowledge, there were few opportunities where his shortcoming were exposed.

Instead, there was plenty of time for Mrs Clinton to offer a yet another muddled answer on her email server and essentially confirm that the Wikileaks hacked speech excerpts are accurate. Mr Trump offered word salads in answers about healthcare reform and Syria policy. If anything, from there the debate was a draw.

With Mrs Clinton ahead right now, a draw will probably suit her just fine. But it wasn’t the knock-out blow her supporters probably hoped for.

Mrs Clinton also defended controversial remarks she made in a private speech that was made public in leaked emails on Saturday.

The transcript had revealed she said a politician has a public and private position, but at the debate she said she had watched a film about Abraham Lincoln and was referring only to what he had done.

So who are the women?
Mr Trump appeared with Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who settled a sexual harassment suit against Mr Clinton for $850,000 in 1999 with no admission of guilt.
Juanita Broaddrick, who claimed Mr Clinton raped her in a hotel room in 1978, also appeared with Mr Trump.
Mr Clinton has denied the claim through his lawyer and no charges have ever been brought against him.
The third woman was Kathleen Willey, a former White House aide who said Mr Clinton groped her in his office in 1993, but had previously said it never happened.

Mr Clinton has also denied this claim.

Kathy Shelton, a fourth woman who spoke, encountered Mrs Clinton in a criminal case when she was 12 years old.

Early in Mrs Clinton’s legal career, she was appointed to defend Ms Shelton’s rapist, despite objections, and had his sentence reduced to a lesser charge.

Years later, an audio tape emerged of Mrs Clinton discussing speaking with a reporter, in which she can be heard laughing about the case.

During one instance, she laughed after explaining that her client had passed a lie detector test, which convinced her to never trust them again.

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