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Hillary Clinton is all set to announce Sunday her candidacy for the American presidency in 2016, finally putting to rest speculation that the former U.S. secretary of state, senator and first lady would again make a run for the White House. Pursuing the presidency isnt all fun and games, however. It brings with it an extremely high level of public scrutiny and criticism. Clinton has seen her fair share of scandals in her 32 years in the political spotlight. Here are five of them.

1. Whitewater. Clintons earliest political scandal played out over two decades, from 1978 to 1998. It began when Bill and Hillary Clinton partnered with James and Susan McDougal to buy a 230-acre parcel of land in Arkansas Ozark Mountains for the development of vacation homes through the Whitewater Development Corp. A 1992 report by the New York Times on the demise of the venture launched investigations into the Clintons connections with James McDougals Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan business, which was being investigated by the Resolution Trust Corp. for its own failure.

Among other allegations, it was claimed that Bill Clinton used his position as Arkansas governor to pressure David Hale to lend $300,000 to Susan McDougal. Hillary Clintons work with the Rose Law Firm, which represented Madison Guaranty, implicated her in the scandal. A federal investigation eventually led to both Clintons being subpoenaed, making Hillary Clinton the only sitting U.S. first lady to ever appear before a grand jury. Both Clintons were cleared of wrongdoing. For an in-depth look at the Whitewater scandal, see the Washington Posts archive.

2. Benghazi. Clintons tenure as U.S. secretary of state under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013 was marred by the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Conservative pundits seized on the attack as evidence that the Obama administration in general and Clintons State Department in particular were incompetent and unable to protect the countrys interests abroad. Susan Rice, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and now the national security adviser, initially insisted the attack was spontaneous and grew out of local demonstrations, but once it became evident that the attack was the result of a coordinated terrorist action, pundits alleged a cover-up was in play.

Clinton ultimately took responsibility for the security failures in Benghazi, but the cover-up allegations remain unproven.

3. Her private email account. Clintons latest scandal also involves her time as secretary of state. The New York Times broke the story last month that Clinton employed a private email account for official business during her tenure at the State Department. According to the Times, this use could violate federal requirements centered on the status of those emails as public records. With Clinton a prime 2016 presidential candidate, a media firestorm erupted. Clinton hasnt been charged with breaking any laws, but that doesnt mean she didnt do anything wrong, critics say.

As a federal employee, Clinton had the right to delete any emails she deemed personal and therefore inappropriate as public records. After receiving a State Department request for her emails last October, Clinton deleted 30,000 of them and handed over another 30,000 as public records. She then wiped her personal server, meaning nobody could access the 30,000 emails she personally decided to keep off the public record, the New York Times reported.

4. The Clinton Foundations questionable finances. The Clinton Foundation, founded by Bill Clinton shortly after he left the White House in January 2001, has become a massive multimillion-dollar organization known for high-profile partnerships, events and initiatives. Much of the foundations funding comes from longtime backers of the Clinton family -- and, in some instances, foreign governments on which Hillary Clinton had to take policy stancesas secretary of state. One example: Despite lambasting Colombia for its human-rights record in 2008, her foreign-policy stance on the country became noticably more favorable in 2011 after a large contribution to the Clinton Foundation by the Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., an oil and gas company active in Colombia and based in Toronto.

Recently, the Clinton Foundation accepted a donation from a Moroccan government-owned company, despite the Clinton-run State Departments 2011 criticism of that government, Politicoreported.

Where all that money winds up is also a subject of criticism. For one thing, there have been allegations of waste. Ira Magaziner, who runs multiple efforts at the foundation, spent thousands of dollars to send a team around the world for months to build up a climate-change proposal, but it fell flat, as the New York Timesreported.

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Hillary Clinton Scandals: Five Times She Caught Heat

NEW YORK --

Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of state who lost the 2008 nomination to Barack Obama, will begin this time by courting voters in living rooms and cafes in early voting states. If victorious in 2016, she would become the nation's first female president.

The first official word of her candidacy will come in a video posted on social media and to supporters online, according to two people familiar with her plans. She will then turn to states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, looking to connect directly with voters in small, intimate settings.

The people familiar with her plans spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Members of the political group Ready for Hillary held one last rally in New York on Saturday. They're urging former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for president.

Dozens of supporters, elected officials and Democratic leaders gathered at a fundraiser the day before Clinton is expected to officially announce her presidential campaign.

They packed a lower Manhattan restaurant and frequently chanted the would-be candidate's first name. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney led the cheers.

The group has raised more than $15 million over the last two years and held events in all 50 states.

In response, the Republican National Committee has launched a #StopHillary campaign. It posted a new video to YouTube:

Clinton has offered glimpses in recent speeches of why she will again seek the White House. Another preview came Friday in the epilogue to the paperback version of her 2014 book, "Hard Choices."

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Hillary Clinton to launch 2016 presidential campaign on Sunday

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to officially announce Sunday that she is running for president.

The former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state is slatedto launch her campaignaround noon with anonline announcement.

Advisers told The Associated Press that Clintons second bid for the White House will start with small personal events in early-voting states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire. They say they dont want it to appear that she is taking the nomination for granted, which some critics have chargedwas her mistake eight years ago.

The campaign launch will also put Brooklyn back in the spotlight. The borough lost out to hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2016 to Philadelphia. But Clinton is setting up her headquarters in Brooklyn Heights.

Staffers and volunteers began working there last week, WCBS 880s Jim Smith reported.

Clinton will be the first Democrat to announce her candidacy. On the Republican side, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have already entered the race.

CBS News correspondent Steve Portnoy said that while Clinton is a favorite among Democratic voters, that may change whenmore people enter the race.

It will be interesting to see. Our new CBS News poll in the last couple of weeks showed that eight in 10 Democrats say that they would gladly support a Hillary Clinton candidacy, but six in 10 said they would also like to see a robust debate within the Democratic Party, see someone other than Hillary Clinton run, Portnoy told WCBS 880. For now, she faces no substantial competition.

Clintons advisers say that key issues in her campaign will include boosting economic security for the middle class and expanding opportunities for working families.

Clinton intends to sell herself as being able to work with Congress, businesses and world leaders, the advisers said. That approach could be perceived as a critique of President Barack Obama, who has largely been unable to fulfill his pledge to end Washingtons intense partisanship and found much of his presidency stymied by gridlock with Congress.

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Hillary Clinton Expected To Make Presidential Run Official Today

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday will officially launch her presidential campaign, which has been running behind the scenesfor months and picks up where her failed 2008 presidential run left off.

The announcement - designed to be as low-key as anything involving Clinton can be - will start with a video and social media push. Then, starting as early as Tuesday, she will visit Iowa and other early primary states to meet and greet voters in restaurants and other modest venues.

A former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady, Clinton enters as the prohibitive favorite among Democrats while also polling far ahead of any potential Republican rival now on the scene.

More celebrity than politician, Clinton is almost universally known. Nearly every American already has an opinion of her, whether good or bad.

Former U.S. senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is expected to announce that shes running for president in 2016. Here's the Democrats take on womens rights, Benghazi and more, in her own words. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)

Clinton summed up her long and colorful biography in cheeky fashion when she joined Twitter in 2013: "Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado,glass ceiling cracker, TBD..."

The "to be determined" reference is now decided: a second attempt at the White House. Clinton has been running a shadow campaign for months, attacking Republicans and refining a Democratic base-friendly message heavy on themes of economic fairness and an equal shot at middle class success for all.

She has probably the best chance in history of becoming the first female U.S. president. That potential is woven throughout her emerging platform, with an emphasis on the advocacy for women and girls that has been the backbone of her professionallife.

"Don't you someday want to see a woman president of the United States?" Clinton teasingly asked an audience of Democratic women last month.

A chief challenge of Clinton's early campaign will be to reintroduce or "re-brand" the candidate for a second presidential run. Advisers, including outside corporate ad-makers, have been at work on that project for months.

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Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential bid starts today

Washington No more speculation Hillary Rodham Clinton is in. And this time, people close to her presidential campaign say, shes taking nothing for granted.

Hanging over Mrs. Clintons 2016 enterprise will be her shocking failure to win the Democratic nomination in 2008, when she got smoked by a flashy young upstart named Barack Obama. The former first ladys inevitability proved to be a mirage, both because of then-Senator Obamas superior skills as a candidate and mistakes by her campaign.

Here are some key ways in which Clintons 2016 campaign will be different:

She will run as a woman. So ... she ran as a man last time? No, but she didnt highlight womens issues or the fact that she would be the first woman president even as an integral part of President Obamas narrative centered on race and the historic nature of his own candidacy. This time, Clinton aides make clear, she will be all over equality issues and womens rights, both in the United States and globally.

As secretary of State, Clinton put womens issues front and center. And she is putting her status as a mother and now a grandmother to a baby girl -- to political use. In an updated epilogue to her latest memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton writes extensively of her own experiences as a new mother to Chelsea and then the wonders of grandparenthood, linking baby Charlotte to the wider world and its future.

Becoming a grandmother has made me think deeply about the responsibility we all share as stewards of the world we inherit and will one day pass on, Clinton writes.

Rather than make me want to slow down, it has spurred me to speed up, she adds, a suggestion that the title grandma doesnt make her old.

She will have a different team (sort of) and a different strategy. Exhibit A is that Mark Penn, the divisive chief strategist and pollster of Clintons 2008 campaign, will be nowhere near her 2016 campaign. Robby Mook, a young star in Clintons 2008 campaign, will be her 2016 campaign manager, and Joel Benenson, Obamas pollster, will be her top strategist. John Podesta, a former top adviser to both Presidents Clinton and Obama, will chair her campaign. In Mr. Podesta, Clinton will have someone who is almost a peer and can offer unvarnished and critical counsel, a role that went unfilled in 2008, writes Dan Balz of The Washington Post.

Just as important, her aides say, she will approach her campaign as if she faces a competitive nomination process even though she does not, so far. She is getting organized in early primary and caucus states. Theres still plenty of time for a major Democratic challenger to get in (Elizabeth Warren, anyone?), and even if Senator Warren is highly unlikely to jump in, Clinton isnt taking any chances. You can also bet that Clinton operatives will know all the obscure delegation-accumulation rules in early states, an area where she fell down last time.

Even if Clinton coasts to the nomination, she will face a tough general election fight next year. Shell need to get in shape for that. That means wooing voters in important swing states from Day One.

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Hillary Clinton 2016: How this presidential campaign will be different