Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected Sunday the suggestion that her husband’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky was an abuse of power, noting that the intern “was an adult.”

Mrs. Clinton also said that President Bill Clinton should “absolutely not” have stepped down over the White House affair, which began in 1995 when Ms. Lewinsky was 22.

Asked if he should have resigned, Mrs. Clinton said, “Absolutely not.” Was it an abuse of power? “No. No,” she told “CBS Sunday Morning” in an interview with Tony Dokoupil.

Mr. Clinton’s sexual past has come under scrutiny in the wake of the #MeToo movement, with even Democrats such as New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand saying he should have left office over the affair.

“There are people who look at the incidents of the ‘90s and they say, ‘A president of the United States cannot have a consensual relationship with an intern; the power imbalance is too great,’” said Mr. Dokoupil, at which point Mrs. Clinton interjected, “who was an adult.”

Almost all the highest-profile #MeToo accusers of such figures as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer and Al Franken were legal adults like Ms. Lewinsky was.

Mr. Clinton was impeached by the House for perjury and obstruction, but acquitted in 1999 by the Senate.

The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate compared the reaction against her husband’s conduct to that of President Trump, and implied that she either thought it was excessive, or at least that there hasn’t been enough investigation of Mr. Trump.

“But let me ask you this: Where’s the investigation of the current incumbent, against whom numerous allegations have been made, and which he dismisses, denies and ridicules?” Mrs. Clinton asked.

She added about her husband that “there was an investigation and it, as I believe, came out in the right place.”