Bill Clinton makes stunning confession about his bizarre behavior after Hillary's defeat in America's 'darkest election'

President Bill Clinton was so enraged by the treatment of his wife, Hillary, during her failed presidential bid that he couldn't sleep for two years, he now admits – or stop complaining about the shock defeat.

Writing in his new memoir, an emotional Clinton issues an apology to all those who found him hard going in the years following the 2016 contest, won by Donald Trump, which he describes as 'the darkest election possible in the United States'.

Clinton, president from 1991-2001, still blames Hillary's defeat on a toxic combination of Russian propaganda, an unprecedented investigation into her use of emails by James Comey, then director of the FBI, and a supine political press which, he says, took more interest in the email controversy than the merits of the candidates.

'The whole thing is hard for me to write,' he says in Citizen – My Life After The White House. 'I couldn't sleep for two years after the election. I was so angry, I wasn't fit to be around.

'I apologize to all those who endured my outbursts of rage, which lasted for years and bothered or bored people who thought it pointless to rehash things that couldn't be changed.'

Pointing to his wife's calamitous loss of a six-point polling lead, he writes that: 'Almost two years after the election, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a highly regarded social scientist said Russia's cyber attacks piled on top of Comey's interventions were effective enough to persuade voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. to vote for third parties or stay at home.

'If so, Putin's enablers were Comey and the political press.'

Clinton makes a series of admissions in the memoir, including remarks about his relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his affair with Monica Lewinksy, which led to his 1996 impeachment by the House of Representatives.

He also addresses a bizarre claim his staff deliberately tore the letter 'W' from White House keyboards to hinder his successor, President George W Bush - and admits that the long-running allegation might be true.

Clinton, 78, recalls how a media 'feeding frenzy' marred the handover to Bush in 2001 amid claims departing staff had vandalized the West Wing. At the time, it was said that filing cabinets were glued shut, obscene messages left on answering machines and pornographic pictures placed on office printers.

The presidential entourage was accused of smashing up crockery on Airforce One. Bill and Hillary Clinton themselves were in the frame for pilfering bedroom furniture.

But nothing caught the public imagination like the claim that official keyboards were systematically disfigured to remove the letter 'W' - the middle initial of the incoming president and the name by which he was often known.

'There are dozens, if not hundreds of keyboards with these missing keys,' a White House source said at the time. 'In some cases, the 'W' keys have been taped on top of the doorways, which are 12 feet tall. In other cases, they were glued on with Superglue, right way up or upside down.'

Clinton states in the new book that: 'The White House staff asked me to take the tables saying they didn't want to keep or store them. And no one on Airforce One destroyed government merchandise.'

But were the keyboards defaced?

'Within a few days some people finally went on the record to say that either no damage had occurred or that the allegations of 'W' mischief were greatly exaggerated,' he concludes, an open-ended remark that most will take as an admission that the claims were in fact true.

A year-long investigation by the General Accounting Committee later found Clinton's staff had caused about $15000-worth of 'damage, theft, vandalism and pranks' although there were no prosecutions.

Clinton has long faced questions about his associate with Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life in 2009 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.

In his book he admits to flying on Epstein's private jet, the Lolita Express, in 2002 and 2003 but dismisses allegations he ever visited the disgraced financier's private island, Little Saint James, in the US Virgin Islands.

Clinton claims Epstein had offered the plane in support of his foundation and that they spoke about economics and politics.

He writes: 'The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein's plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward. I wish I had never met him.'

Clinton adds: 'I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing.

'He hurt a lot of people, but I knew nothing about it, and by the time he was first arrested in 2005, I had stopped contact with him. I've never visited his island.'

The former president also opened up about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

In his book he recalled an NBC 'Today Show' interview in 2018 where he was asked if he had ever apologized to Lewinsky.

Clinton writes: 'I said, 'No, I felt terrible then.''

''Did you ever apologize to her?' I said that I had apologized to her and everybody else I wronged. I was caught off guard by what came next.

''But you didn't apologize to her, at least according to folks that we've talked to.'

'I fought to contain my frustration as I replied that while I'd never talked to her directly, I did say publicly on more than [one] occasion I was sorry.''

The 42nd president went on to admit the interview 'was not my finest hour'.