Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday blamed her election loss on FBI Director James Comey and on WikiLeaks' publication of Democratic emails.
Clinton, speaking at a Women for Women International event and quoted by The Hill, also took responsibility for the election defeat, adding she'll explain more in a book she's writing about the campaign.
“I was the candidate. I was the person who was on the ballot and I am very aware of, you know, the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had. Again, I will write all this out for you,” she said.
Clinton claimed she was on track to winning the election until October 28, when news broke that Comey had sent a letter to Congress announcing that he had reopened the investigation into her emails.
Clinton did not stop there, and also attributed the loss to Russian hackers who allegedly attacked Democratic email accounts and gave the emails to WikiLeaks for publication.
“I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” Clinton claimed.
“And the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive. And so we overcame a lot. We overcame an enormous barrage of negativity, of false equivalency, and so much else,” she added.
This is not the first time that Clinton has blamed the FBI and the leaks for her election failure. In December, shortly after her loss, Clinton made similar claims while also saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a hand in her loss.
At the time, Clinton claimed that Putin ordered hacking attacks against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee “because he has a personal beef against me”.