Activists blame President Ronald Reagan for what they view as a devastatingly slow response to the AIDS crisis.
Clinton immediately tweeted an apology after her initial remarks last March. But her aides felt the LGBT community was unsatisfied and agreed to release a more detailed response.
"I don't want this to fester," wrote Clinton's campaign's LGBT outreach director, Dominic Lowell.
An initial draft of Clinton's statement began with stating "I made a mistake." The line was changed to "I said something inaccurate" with the phrase "I made a mistake, plain and simple" added later.
